“You have an appointment in Samarra.”
This cryptic message, a parable that reaches back in time to the Babylonian Talmud, sets in motion a complex terror plot where rogue scientists have turned nature itself into a devastating weapon.
Within months of the message being received, a virulent toxin is killing people up and down the Eastern seaboard of the United States. What was initially believed to be food poisoning turns out to be a terrorist attack using genetically modified insects to poison the American food supply.
For Gabriel Marx, news of the poisoning is eerily familiar. A Marine Corps veteran and trained viticulturist, Gabriel is now working as a vintner at Landmark Estates Winery in California, but was once part of a secret CIA effort to use insect vectors to destroy the Afghan Taliban’s poppy industry. He’s long feared that genetically synthesized toxins delivered by insects could be used as a terror weapon.
One day a stream of black SUVs carrying the Secretary of Homeland Security shows up at the vineyard, and Gabriel is recruited to help the government respond to the attack. He is drawn into a complex web of rogue scientists with links to ISIS and Chechen terrorists, and discovers that an even more devastating attack is imminent.
In his follow up novel to his acclaimed alt-history The Two Gates, Ken Davenport has delivered a gripping story that merges cutting-edge synthetic biology with global politics and international terrorism. In the spirit of Michael Crichton and Daniel Silva, The Bug Hunter is both thriller and cautionary tale of how advances in technology can be used to turn nature itself into a devastating weapon. $0.99 on Kindle.
