The First Horseman (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "At first he didn't hear it..." (more)
Key Phrases: crystal dragon, New York, Neal Gleason, Temple of Light (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The fictional bioterror of Richard Preston's The Cobra Event was scary enough, but The First Horseman is based on the real Spanish flu, a hideous virus that killed over 20 million people in 1918. From the opening pages, this second novel by investigative reporter John Case (author of The Genesis Code) thrusts readers into the thick of a rapid-fire plot. In New York, a man and a woman are murdered at their home by a cult whose motivations remain mysterious. Immediately, the action shifts to Tasi-ko, North Korea, where a medical worker flees to the mountains to escape a disease that has decimated his village. While he looks on from his hiding spot, North Korean soldiers pour into Tasi-ko and incinerate it and all of its suffering inhabitants. The CIA investigates the events at Tasi-ko, and realizing that the disease could well be a hybrid Spanish flu being tested as a biological weapon, recruits a team of American scientists to uncover the only known sample of the 1918 pandemic--which is frozen into the bodies of miners buried in the Arctic. From there the novel traces scientists Anne Adair and Benton Kicklighter on their expedition to the frozen town of Kopervik to uncover the miners' corpses. Not knowing that the CIA is behind Adair and Kicklighter's work, Washington Post reporter Frank Daly follows their story. When the scientists return empty-handed, though, he begins to suspect that a medical curiosity is on the verge of becoming a global catastrophe.

The strength of the novel is the eerie suspense that Case sustains by revealing only enough about the Korean plot and the Temple of Light cult to keep the reader fully engaged and wanting more. While Case doesn't spend much time delving into the lives and motivations of his characters, the Spanish flu is the real star. Case propels the novel with the constant reminder that a new plague is on the verge of exploding, and his several enigmatic subplots keep you turning the pages and praying that this is only fiction. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Publishers Weekly

Recent reports that the 1918 flu virus, source of history's most lethal pandemic, might be preserved inside the bodies of five Norwegian miners buried beneath the permafrost on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen make this novel especially timely. Moving in dated chapters through the spring into the summer months of 1998, this tense thriller turns that story into a "secular apocalypse," which begins when a North Korean medical officer flees across the DMZ to report that his isolated village was first devastated by a strange sickness, then destroyed and completely buried by the military. A team of American microbiologists, whose application to exhume the Spitsbergen bodies has been denied, suddenly finds its expedition funded by a foundation from which they hadn't even sought money. Frank Daly, a Washington Post reporter scheduled to join the expedition, is grounded in Archangel, and when he meets the icebreaker Rex Mundi on its return to Norway, he finds the pier closed and no one from the expedition willing to talk to him?a sure incentive for any true reporter to pursue the story to the death, which Daly very nearly does. Although the setup is in some ways more gripping than the action payoff of the novel's second half, pseudonymous D.C. reporter Case (The Gemini Code) breathes excitement into his topical story. Especially memorable is the microwave death of one character, leaving behind just a tiny handful of soot.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Fawcett; 1st edition (August 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449911020
• ISBN-13: 978-0449911020
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,316,336 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHO IS JOHN CASE?, October 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The First Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

Whoever he may be, he ranks with Michel Creighton and Robin Cook. His mixture of fact with fiction gives his story both suspense and credibility. There really was an expedition to Norway to hunt for the virus. The 1918 flu was pandemic. My 90 year old grandmother lived through it and to her flu equals death. She would no sooner take a flu vaccine then I would an AIDS vaccine. Anyone who has worried about biological terroism should read this book. Lets just hope Saddam Hussain doesn't get hold of the copy. As for those who compain about this not being a "thriller" they must be addicted to gun battles and car chases. This is a psychological thriller based on the very real capabilities of anthrax brewing terrorists. If you want blood, gore and ridiculous story lines go back to Dean Koontz.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you're going to choose mainstream, July 31, 2000

By	Keith Dougherty "klayy" (Ossining, New York USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The First Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

If you're going to skip the classics and look for a mainstream type of book you might as well look for something by John case. I find his books to be a step above your everyday Grisham and James Patterson novels. This book touches on a very real and dangerous topic in today's world. Biochemical warfare is not talked about much by the government because the results of which would be devastating. Overall with all the books i've ever read I would probably drop this rating to a three.... but I choose to rate books based on the type of books they are; this would make a good tavel type of book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Who Sneezed?, July 12, 2002

By	Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The First Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

A lot of times when I read a medical thriller, I always tend to get a little paranoid. Every cough, sniffle, or sneeze takes on serious overtones. I think of books like this one, where millions became very sick or even die, and get antsy. I also start to think of the possible implications of going out to a movie, a concert, or any other place where large groups of people gather. I'm a student at a large university, and people are ALWAYS spreading around some illness or another there. Therefore, these types of books scare me more than most horror/suspense/psychological novels do. "The First Horseman" is one of these scary books. The author of "The First Horseman," John Case, is actually a pseudonym for a husband and wife team. They haven't written a lot of books, but this one must be one of their best.

The story incorporates several real life events into a fictional account about a potential viral Armageddon. The story starts out with an unusual incident in the backwaters of North Korea, where a small village suffers a high death toll from a strange illness that causes its victims to turn blue and suffer a host of ills before they die. A doctor from the capital, Pyongyang, visits and cryptically refers to the "Spanish Lady" before he leaves. One of the villagers, while out collecting wood for dinner (this is North Korea, after all), witnesses the destruction of the village by North Korean military officials. His defection to South Korea and his report of the incident set off a high level investigation involving the CIA, the FBI, and various intelligence services. Caught up in the unfolding events is Frank Daly, a reporter form the Washington Post on a one year assignment to a specialist magazine, and Annie Adair, a scientist who is on a mission to excavate some Norwegian miners buried in the Arctic Circle in order to look for traces of the influenza pandemic of 1918. Also emerging into the storyline is Solange, the mysterious leader of a religious cult called, "The Temple of Light." The resulting story lines are all weaved together into a taut, suspenseful thriller that kept me captivated until the last page.

Although the cover of my copy of the book says this is a novel of suspense, it is more than that. It is also a book about journalism. A good portion of the book is about Frank Daly investigating a story. We see how a journalist works to uncover facts. Frank makes phone calls to sources, digs through satellite images, tracks down names and numbers, wrestles with his publisher and his expense account, and occasionally deals with dangerous people who wish he would quit digging around where he's not wanted. For some reason, I kept picturing Daly as a certain Fox News channel talk show host-persistent, unflappable, and with a swaggering sense of humor. I guess most journalists have that type of commitment to their stories, but I couldn't shake the image.

Character development in "The First Horseman" is uneven. Daly is drawn well, with good background into his childhood and his interaction with other characters. The Annie character is not as well done. I didn't seem to have the connection with her I got from Daly. Annie is supposed to be this brilliant, big shot scientist but she comes across as a shy, giggling teenybopper type. She's always blushing about something and always putting her foot in her mouth about something she says or does. Solange, the cult leader, is portrayed as a psycho with little development outside torturing someone or giving orders to people.

I still got a thrill out of this book and found it difficult to put down. Not only does it have a novel type of torture (shook up Pepsi shot through someone's nose!) but it also moves at a fast pace, which is essential for a thriller. If you like thrillers, especially of the bioterror/medical type, pick up this book and give it a go.