Whiteout

Follett invades Robin Cook territory with a bio-thriller set in Scotland during a Christmas Eve blizzard. The yuletide reunion of the Oxenford clan at their remote estate is interrupted when a canister of a deadly virus is stolen from the research lab of patriarch Stanley Oxenford. The quartet of thieves has a rendezvous to sell the virus to a sinister client. But thieves and family are snowbound on the estate. As the roar of the storm echoes (an ominous sound effect), the battle between family and thugs escalates into a race against the clock. Barbara Rosenblat infuses the characters of this overpopulated story with such a distinctive personality and voice that each one is easily identifiable. This powerful production builds to a terrifying climax. M.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

November 15, 2004
Bestseller Follett sets his sights on biological terrorism, pumping old-school adrenaline into this new breed of thriller. Ex-policewoman Antonia "Toni" Gallo, head of security at a boutique pharmaceuticals company, has discovered that two doses of an experimental drug—developed as a potential cure for the deadly Madoba-2 virus—have vanished from her top-secret laboratory. This mystery is a precursor to a more serious crime being planned by Kit Oxenford, the gambling-addicted son of the company's founder, Stanley Oxenford. Kit, deeply in debt to mobster Harry Mac, sees a raid on his father's lab as a chance to score enough money to disappear and start anew in another country. Some characters are a bit familiar—the pesky, unprincipled journalist; the imbecilic police detective—but others, the mobster's psychopathic daughter in particular, show idiosyncratic originality. After a long buildup, the burglary is set in motion, and Kit's best-laid plans begin to fall apart. Eventually, good guys and bad guys end up at the Oxenford family estate, trapped in the house by a fierce snowstorm as they battle one another over the material stolen from the laboratory. A romance between the recently widowed Stanley and Toni and the unexpected addition of Toni's comically addled mother thicken the plot as Follett's agonizingly protracted, nail-biter ending drags readers to the very edge of their seats and holds them captive until the last villain is satisfactorily dispatched. Agents, Al Zuckerman and Amy Berkower at Writers House.

August 1, 2004
Simultaneous with the Dutton hardcover.

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