Don’t panic if you want to solve riddle of killer pathogen
JUST short of 700 pages, spread over 137 chapters, AG Riddle’s Pandemic is a good long read for science/fiction/medical/ mystery/murder lovers. It’s also a scary look into psychopathic minds of ordinary mortals who feel compelled “to save humanity from themselves or keep the world for themselves”.
Good eventually triumphs over evil and no one person or organisation can ever fully control the world’s billions. Unfortunately, before discovering that, their mad schemes usually cause havoc and multiple deaths.
Sometimes, intentions are well intended. Such as Riddle’s “Looking Glass” plan, designed to protect humankind from all manner of evils. However, masquerading as an honest saviour is a twisted, bitter mind manipulating honest, principled ones into servicing their aims. That’s the gist of
Pandemic. Remove “dem” from pandemic and you spell” panic”. That’s what happens when a young man with an extraordinary body rash and bleeding eyes presents himself at Mandera – a hospital in a remote part of Kenya.
Dr Elim Kibit immediately senses this is an Ebola-type illness… except it isn’t. It’s a disease he’s never encountered before. As hospital staff and patients begin showing similar symptoms, as well as others displaying unusual flu-like conditions, Kibit realises these sicknesses are serious. News that hospitals in other countries are experiencing unprecedented numbers of patients presenting themselves and dying with the same pathogen set alarm bells ringing that this (as yet) undiagnosed disease is reaching pandemic proportions. The question arises: Is this a natural or man-created disaster?
That’s when the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organisation become active. American epidemiologist Dr Peyton Shaw is summoned to fly a hand-picked team to Mandera. They are tasked with sourcing and controlling this deadly pathogen now coded the X1 factor.
Riddle bases his novel on researched fact and reaction from CDC and WHO to a fatal epidemic in a remote part of Kenya. Choosing the country as his starting point, it is not political.
The journey Riddle takes readers on is convoluted and requires a good memory. Especially where acronyms and names are concerned. Naturally, Riddle initially identifies the title before trimming it into an acronym. But unless the reader is familiar with the many organisations he weaves through, without a formal referral list of acronyms or abbreviations, the tendency is to lose the story’s thread. Readers should keep pen and paper handy to compile their own list.
Although Riddle introduces many sub-characters, the main ones are Desmond Hughes, Peyton Shaw, Millen Thomas, Hannah Watson and Conner McClain. After introducing Dr Kibit and patients, Pandemic moves to Berlin.
There we find Hughes waking up to find himself at a murder scene. He has no idea where or who he is. He’s been stripped of any form of ID and no recollection as to why he is in the German city. When police burst into his room wanting to arrest him for murder, he flees.
It’s around his regaining his memory, his past relationship with Shaw, and the search for the root cause and cure for the X1 factor that keeps readers reading.
However, the complete answer to Riddle’s Pandemic riddle lies in Genome, his second and next book in this series… The Extinction Files.