Cold Plague

Dr. Noah Haldane #2

by Daniel Kalla

Pristine water—hidden for millions of years, untouched by pollution, and possessing natural healing powers—is found miles under Antarctic ice. The scientists who make this astonishing discovery stand to win worldwide acclaim and earn billions. While people around the world line up for a taste of the therapeutic water, a cluster of new cases of mad cow disease explodes in a rural French province. Dr. Noah Haldane and his World Health Organization team are urgently summoned.

Fresh from a brush with a pandemic flu, Noah recognizes the deadliness of a prion—the enigmatic microscopic protein responsible for mad cow disease—that kills with the speed and ferocity of a virus. Despite intense international pressure to declare the outbreak a random occurrence, Noah suspects that factors other than nature have ignited the prion’s spread among animals and people in France. Facing a spate of disappearances and unexplained deaths, Noah uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Beverly Hills, and from the North to the South Pole. He soon realizes that the scientific find of the century—a lake the size of Lake Superior buried three miles under Antarctica—might hold the key to a microscopic Jurassic Park.

With a billion-dollar industry hanging on his silence, Noah has to stay alive long enough to sound the alarm.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Medical, Science Fiction, Medicine, Suspense

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2008

About the author

Born, raised, and still residing in Vancouver, Daniel has worked as an ER Physician for the past twenty years. He is also the author of fifteen published novels, which have been translated into thirteen languages.

In his latest novel, THE DEEPEST FAKE, a tech CEO and AI pioneer’s carefully curated life is unraveling—his wife is cheating, someone is defrauding his company, and he’s just been handed a fatal diagnosis. He’d end it all, if only he could trust his own reality. As deepfakes and deception blur the lines between truth and illusion, the novel explores the challenges and pitfalls of safeguarding reality in an age when it can be fabricated.

Daniel received his B.Sc. and MD from the University of British Columbia, where he is now a clinical associate professor. He is the proud father of two girls and a poorly behaved but lovable mutt, Milo.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected more. Instead this book is a half-baked rehash of many other thrillers. Female characters, for example, are always defined by their looks while men are defined by their achievements. The science is fine, I guess, but where is the suspense or the mystery? From the very first we know what the problem is and who the villains are.

Sadly once again reminded why so-called thrillers are really rather a bore.

[Laura Janssens · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot's premise was great. And thus ends any good things I have to say about this book. If the storyline itself wasn't so personally intriguing (I love epidemiology AND the Antarctic) I would not have finished it.

Every female character is "sexy" or "sensual" or "curvaceous". Oh wait, no, not EVERY female character. One woman is "androgynous" and we have to know about her "flat chest and narrow hips". She's the sister of a dead plague victim being interviewed about his gruesome death, but her lack of sexy sensual curvaceous-ness is imperative information. Not to mention how most characters are somehow romantically involved with one another and we have to listen to the details of their awkward sexual encounters which do nothing to drive the plot. It took me ages to finish this book because I'd get into a rhythm when the main plot was progressing, then get completely thrown off and have to pause from all the eye rolling when we embarked on some weird side story about a kiss or a hook up with a "seductive" woman (whose actual role in the story is as a brilliant scientist or a powerful international liaison but OKAY).

The ending, where we finally find out the answers about the plague mystery, was lazy at best. I won't include spoilers, but imagine a cheesy hero movie where the plot twists are just a bad guy monologing about his master plan.

I don't know how this book was so highly rated. I love books like this and I love Michael Crichton, which is how Cold Plague came to be recommended to me. What could have been a great book based on an intriguing concept was spoiled by a lazy writer who couldn't stop day dreaming about tits.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know how sometimes you pick up a book for a buck at a library book sale and it turns out to be a gem? Well, this is not one of those books.

It sounded good: Water tapped from a pristine Antarctic lake is touted to have miraculous healing powers. At the same time, new cases of mad cow disease break out in rural France. Is there a connection? Of course there is. Turns out, the water is more deadly than beneficial. But therapeutic water is a big business and those who stand to profit will go to any lengths to ensure its commercial success.

As far as plots go, it's not bad. Sure, the general premise isn't super original; tons of books deal with a potentially world-altering germ of some sort that needs to be eradicated before it kills millions of people. This one is no different. the problem is, it's not nearly as good as it sets out to be.

Why? The writing. The characters. The eye roll-inducing neatness of it all. The heroes are righteous and smarter than everyone else. The villians are one-dimensional and driven simply by greed. The climax is disappointing and predictable. The only interesting "character" in the book is the deadly prion itself, probably because it doesn't have a speaking part.

There are super smart doctors, a gratuitous car chase or two, tough chicks with guns, and even a sappy romantic side story that seems a bit out of place (the main hero, Dr. Noah Haldane, pines for his Bug Czar ex-girlfriend while trying to solve the mystery of the big bad prion). Gag me.

Other problems: stilted, didactic dialogue, weak and often cheesy metaphors, a predictable pseudo-romantic drunken interlude in an elevator, and a couple red herrings that weren't.

I realize this book is part of a series and perhaps if I'd read the previous installments, the characters would mean more to me. But I didn't and they don't. And I think that's the biggest problem I had with this book: I just didn't care about the characters, good or bad.

Bleh.

[Jodie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little difficult to follow with so many characters and places. I even had to go back a few times to figure out who someone was and why they might be important. I am glad I stuck with it and finished reading it - but I was tempted to give up at times. Having lived in England shortly before Mad Cow disease was discovered there it has always been a threat. Not any less scary now after reading this book.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not my usual cup of tea, but ended up on my bookshelf via my Father divesting himself of his large book collection (one day to be all mine!! - *maniacal laugh*)...

It was a rather decent...um...medical thriller, I guess one could call it. A whodunit with viruses, corporations, etc. I enjoyed reading it, I enjoyed the characters, I think I'll probably read more by the author.

This isn't going to be a very detailed review as it just wasn't that gripping of a subject for me. As a completionist, it's on my self so I just needed to read it.

If you like medical mystery thrillers though, you'll probably like it. :)

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing novel, similar to a Crichton novel! Constant plot and character twists, kept me capitivated to the very end! A must read if you enjoy medical and mystery novels!

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent mystery with an interesting concept. Don't find many books about prions, especially fiction I feel like.

[Jeff DeRosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while spending the winter at the South Pole during the Corvid-19 Pandemic. This book was therefore extra impact for me! This is a good story with good science; an easy and entertaining read. One pleasant surprise was the book's setting mostly takes place during a snowy winter in Western Europe (France, mostly) and not Antarctica. The author does a nice job bringing the reader into the nuances and less desirable aspects of Europe.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 out of 5 stars "The purest water on earth" is deadly...

The two doctors with the World Health Organization who appeared in the novel, Pandemic, Dr. Noah Haldane and Dr. Duncan McLeod, join forces with the European Union's department of agriculture representative Elise Renard to analyze several recent cases of what appears to be a variant of Creutzfelt-Jakob Disease. When the team arrives in Limoges, France, to begin their investigation into seven mad cows, they quickly discover that this rapidly accelerated vCJD is not a straight-forward situation of contaminated cows leading to human infection. They delve more deeply into the case and find what they believe is a link between the dead human victims -- is the link connected to the cows or to water all consumed before their deaths? Water that was given to them by a mutual acquaintance -- water with supposed healing properties that came from the huge recently tapped underground lake in Antarctica - Lake Vostok. The purest water on earth, untouched by pollution. The market for this drinking water will be huge and those that discovered and tapped it definitely anticipate the huge profits they will get when it is bottled and brought and sold to the type of people who will pay a hundred dollars or more for a single bottle. They need to solve the mystery fast.

Unfortunately, as the reader suspects immediately, the water contains prions that act very rapidly to destroy the brains of those who consume it. In a race against time, the WHO team and Elise Renard try to find and stop the greedy owners who don't seem to care that they are selling a very horrible death along with the water. The reader knows the major characters involved in this complex coverup, but is not fully able to separate the good guys from the bad guys until almost the very end of the novel. It moves along at a nice pace, back and forth between the settings of French provincial farms and small cities, to the cold ice of the Antarctic.

My favorite genre is the medical thriller and I read them mainly for the science and this idea of the CJD was original and well done. I knew that the doctors would save the world from drinking the contaminated water and having a massive CJD outbreak, but the story of how they solved the case was interesting and I really enjoyed it. I saw that Kalla has written another novel, Of Flesh and Blood, and I may have to read it at some point, but I'm really waiting for another with the Haldane and McLeod characters as I want to see what happens to them next!

[Stacy Kingsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very different book than it was. With the title COLD PLAGUE I thought there was going to be a plague of epic proportions, but there was not. There was an issue, but it wasn't as worldwide as I thought it would be. I did like the book though. I felt that most of the characters were well written and the dialogue was good without being too far science based. Now several have compared it to the work of Michael Crichton, which is is not even close, but it was interesting and the science was fun. Now for the bad, the book made the characters seem unrealistic in the way they thought. AS scientists I felt they should be a little more cognizant of the things going on around them. So while I liked the book I also thought it had a lot of problems. And while I enjoyed the characters and thought they were a little too dense for their jobs.

[Ngaio · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read this book. It's a satisfying, fun read. More thriller than mystery with excellent use of dramatic irony. As this book is a bit older now, I will give Kalla props for his diverse characters even if they're a little awkwardly written at times. My one gripe upon re-reading this is how Kalla tends to over-describe things, particularly female characters. It seems less than realistic that everyone is really attractive. It doesn't really take away from the plot however.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun and interesting read! Interesting, because the setting toggles between Antarctica and France, with a plot involving digging deep into an ancient Antarctic lake for the purest water on the planet, and fun because of the really nice, surprising twists and turns throughout the book.

Fun also, because the author brought back Duncan, that wise-cracking Scotsman, who, in my mind, steals the show.

Suspense; greed; epidemic plague; it's all good.

[Gerry Iaboni · Rating 4 out of 5]

One may think twice about bottled water after reading this...maybe as long it is not from a lake deep under an Antarctic glacier. A page turner my second read from this author he is good.

[Maria Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tale of two storylines, one involves how the WHO reacts to a situation that affects public health and how a product is developed as a consumer product with a greater value than it really has and any negative facts about the product are kept hidden.
The story starts at a research site in Antarctica, that has been drilling into the ice, pulling up ice core samples to evaluate the samples of ice, when they get information from geothermal imaging of hidden lakes of liquid water buried under the ice. They develop a method to extract the water without polluting it. Their sponsor gets the idea to sell this water at a huge profit distributed in bottles because they believe that the water can be processed and sanitized for consumption. One of the researchers has been doing an undercover experiment on people, including himself. despite knowing about the presence of an unknown prion in the water. Each one of the people, he gave, the water suffered both mental and physical deterioration within a short period of time. The symptoms were similar to mad cow disease effects, but now of them ingested beef in enough quantity to explain how they got the disease. but the people behind the production of this water tried to hide the real story by creating a fake outbreak of mad cow disease in a specific area close to where these individuals lived. I enjoyed the scientific information involved in solving this mystery as much as I enjoyed the pace of trying to solve the problem before the whole world is affected by consumption of the unsafe water.

[Gloria Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leading neurologist, Dr. Noah Haldane, is assigned by WHO to work with the E.U. on an outbreak of atypical human cases of mad cow disease in France. Unknown persons interfere with the investigation, spreading lies and threats, taking hostages, murdering.

The tale is bursting with action--car chases, intrigue, betrayal... No one who is involved is safe. Not our heroes, not even the baddies. There's hardly a let-down of tension, which persists throughout. If anything bad can happen to our heroes, it does. Too much so. The perpetrators seem as unstoppable as a many headed hydra. Unless they are stopped, the disease will grow into a pandemic.

Multiple viewpoints give the reader information not available initially to the investigators, thus raising the reader's concern for our heroes and civilization.

The story is truly action-driven, rather than character-driven. While gripping, I feel the tension should build instead of being so consistent that it can wear on the reader. Some character development exists, but it lacks a certain sincerity of depth. I didn't care all that much for the characters. Duncan, in his efforts to be witty, comes across as tortured. If I have a favorite, it would be the anxious detective, Avril, who is as much a victim as the others on the team.

Still, the read is worthwhile and insightful. Here is a medical thriller to satisfy those who love action.

[Gloria Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leading neurologist, Dr. Noah Haldane, is assigned by WHO to work with the E.U. on an outbreak of atypical human cases of mad cow disease in France. Unknown persons interfere with the investigation, spreading lies and threats, taking hostages, murdering.

The tale is bursting with action--car chases, intrigue, betrayal... No one who is involved is safe. Not our heroes, not even the baddies. There's hardly a let-down of tension, which persists throughout. If anything bad can happen to our heroes, it does. Too much so. The perpetrators seem as unstoppable as a many headed hydra. Unless they are stopped, the disease will grow into a pandemic.

Multiple viewpoints give the reader information not available initially to the investigators, thus raising the reader's concern for our heroes and civilization.

The story is truly action-driven, rather than character-driven. While gripping, I feel the tension should build instead of being so consistent that it can wear on the reader. Some character development exists, but it lacks a certain sincerity of depth. I didn't care all that much for the characters. Duncan, in his efforts to be witty, comes across as tortured. If I have a favorite, it would be the anxious detective, Avril, who is as much a victim as the others on the team.

Still, the read is worthwhile and insightful. Here is a medical thriller to satisfy those who love action.

[Carol McKnight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 3.5 but definitely not a 4.0
This was an easy book to read, and the action kept me going from chapter to chapter. Although I knew some of the baddies, I was surprised at the end how many more baddies there were.
Noah Haldane, the man from WHO, is a bit of a ladies man, or at least he thinks he is. Clever, though. Every time there is a new woman in the story, he takes time to describe her looks, but no such with the men in the book.
Interesting to know some more about prions that are the cause of BSE - something that isn’t alive, thus can’t be killed through normal processes like heat and pasteurisation.
Worth reading, but not a best seller.

[Asuka · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot is okay. But comparison to Michael Crichton is just too much. Its science is really just so so (I'm a geologist, so I'm not just guessing). Thriller part is so so. But what makes this book really difficult to read is the blatant misogyny. I realize the book is about 15 years old, but still, the way every female is described in this book makes me feel very uncomfortable as it comes across like women are being appraised solely for their sexual appeal to the protagonist. There is even a comment about a slim woman with short hair as having a flat chest and most likely being a lesbian. I can't really recommend it to anyone because of it.

[Mark Edlund · Rating 2 out of 5]

Medical Thriller - a sequel involving Dr. Noah Haldane. This time deadly water from a virgin under-ice lake in Antarctica is the vector. Bad folks try to profit from it. Kalla sort of lost me when the bad guys realize they have to process the water to hopefully make it safe. Yet the big marketing push was how pure and therapeutic it is? Bad plot hole.
No pharmacy references.
Canadian references - Twin Otters are used to fly in and out of the camp; ice scientist is in Canada; Canadian Coast Guard in the Arctic.

[Janis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A virus that's not a virus, incapable of being destroyed by steralization and completely incapacitates its victim in a matter of days. The next pandemic - mad cow on steroids. Ever wondered what's really in your bottled water, makes you think doesn't it?! Great book, great characters, very scary idea. Enjoy!

[Alexander Muñoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was a gripping story filled with intrigue and a surprising ending, the overall novel seemed a bit drawn out and a tad predictable. I did enjoy the thriller and overall science aspect of the story, but overall the book seemed flat. Definitely worth the read, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.

[Anita Hennesy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't drink the water!! A scary telling of how tenuous life can be on this planet. Portents of doom abound, written long before the events of 2020. takes place in a few days time, over several locations, sometimes confusing as to who or where each chapter is. But on the whole keeps the reader plowing through with increasing anxiety.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sad thing about this book is that it would be a pretty awesome virus novel if the women weren't talked about like pieces of meat most of the time. Medical dramas and virus books are some of my favorites, but I just couldn't get over the language toward the woman. I can get having an eye for one or two, but almost every woman in the book! Dang.

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

An untouched water source is found deep beneath the Antartic ice! Could this have ancient healing properties or an ancient curse? Following the clues in this thriller isn't as simple as it sounds. I really enjoyed the journey.

[Tony Berryman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one. Dan does his usual excellent job of drilling down (sorry!) into little-known areas of science and weaving the details into an engaging story. The characters in this one carry the story but seemed a little less 'rich' than usual, if you know what I mean.

Well worth the read!

[Elizabeth Scarlette · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Having opened up more to each other than in any other previous conversation, they fell into a brief clumsy silence before they turned to more familiar territory" - Kalla, pg.135. Just a quote that stuck with me.

[Courtney Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good, it just went on a bit longer than I thought it needed to (actually the last third of the book was the best, this middle was just a bit slow).

Is it the water? Is it the ice? Is it the beef? What is killing people and cattle in Europe?

[Katherine Stoltz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not his best work. The plot was convoluted and pretty hard to accept as possible. I did not like his description of his characters; it sounded like the voiceover of a cheesy detective drama. Intriguing concept, but it fell flat for me. The Kalla binge continues...

[Donna Devos · Rating 5 out of 5]

His best yet

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Formulaic he was telegraphing the plot from miles away