The End of October

Starred review from March 9, 2020
On a trip to the site of an “unusual cluster of adolescent fatalities in a refugee camp” in Indonesia, World Health Organization doctor Henry Parsons, the hero of this multifaceted thriller from Pulitzer Prize winner Wright (God Save Texas), discovers the compound decimated by an unknown disease. Parsons sounds the alarm that the virus responsible may have spread after learning that his driver, who went inside the camp, was allowed to leave the area. The stakes rise when Parsons finds out that the driver was headed for Saudi Arabia to participate in a pilgrimage to Mecca, thus potentially exposing millions to the fatal infection. Meanwhile, the Saudis and Iranians are at each other’s throats, and a career NSC official fears that Putin’s Russia is preparing a cyberattack that would cripple the U.S. Wright pulls few punches and imbues even walk-on characters with enough humanity that their fate will matter to readers. This timely literary page-turner shows Wright is on a par with the best writers in the genre. Author tour. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

Narrator Mark Bramhall keeps to a firm pace in a story that is often heavily factual and scientific. Many listeners are already familiar with Lawrence Wright's own narration of his prize-winning LOOMING TOWER, which charted the events leading up to 9/11. Wright's new novel about the global spread of a killer virus couldn't be better--or worse--timed, and for that alone benefits from the choice of an experienced narrator. Bramhall animates a storyline that's all too real, and all too close to home, and he lends intimacy and immediacy to the epic melodrama that has now become present reality. Any other time--even six months ago--this would have been an urgent cautionary tale. Now, alas, it's the morning's news. D.A.W. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine