Dead on Arrival

by Matt Richtel, Jonathan Yen (Reading)

Listening length: 12 hours and 32 minutes

A mysterious disorder threatens to destroy the world in this high-concept thriller from Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter Matt Richtel, which combines medical science, cutting-edge technology, and breathtaking suspense in the vein of Michael Crichton

An airplane lands at a desolate airport in a remote Colorado ski town. On board, Dr. Lyle Martin, a world-class infectious disease specialist, is brusquely awakened to shocking news: everyone not on the plane appears to be dead. A lethal new kind of virus may have surfaced, threatening our survival, and now Martin—one of the most sought after virologists on the planet until his career took a precipitous slide—is at the center of the investigation.

The symptoms are the most confounding the experienced doctor has ever seen. Is it the work of terrorists? A biological attack? A natural occurrence? As word of the deadly sickness spreads, panic leads to violence and chaos. Armed and terrified partisans and patriots, stoked by technology and social media, have dug in, unknowingly creating fertile ground for the deadly syndrome Dr. Martin has begun to identify.

As the globe begins to unravel and paranoia and hatred take hold, Martin is forced to face a question as terrifying as this syndrome itself: is the world better left unsaved?

Moving at a breakneck pace from the labs of the Centers for Disease Control to the secret campus of Google X to the marble halls of the Capitol, Dead on Arrival is a brilliantly imaginative, high-concept thriller that draws on Matt Richtel's years of science and technology reporting for the New York Times, and establishes him as one of the premier technological thriller writers working today.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Science Fiction, Horror, Suspense, Audiobook

13 pages, Audiobook

First published August 1, 2017

About the author

Matt Richtel is a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times based in San Francisco.
He co-created and formerly wrote the syndicated comic Rudy Park under the pen name Theron Heir. Since 2012, the strip is now written by its longtime illustrator Darrin Bell.

Reviews

[Mackey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm unsure how to write this review without spoilers because what worked so well about the book is is that I knew absolutely nothing about it going into it. That made the twists and shock factor of the storyline terrific. DON'T READ SPOILERS ABOUT THIS BOOK!

That said, a plane is forced to make an emergency landing in a somewhat remote location in CO. Everyone on the ground is dead - or are they? The cockpit crew looks out on the plane to find the same thing with exception of two people. What happens next is a bizarre and, ironically, a very timely tale given a recent news release from a global company.

I was searching for another of Richtel's novels, The Doomsday Equation, about which I've heard great things and came across this instead. I'm very glad I did. It's a thriller, suspense, and very prophetic. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Antigone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Matt Richtel is a journalist. He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He is on the staff of The New York Times. He is also currently confirming my theory that not all reporters remain empathetically-equipped to write a solid novel.

This mystery/thriller begins with a plane that loses contact with everyone on Earth mid-flight. The pilot manages to land the craft amidst an eerie quiet, only to find the body of an airline worker splayed across the tarmac, and her heretofore anxious passengers slumped unconscious in their seats. All but two, that is - one of whom just happens to be a world-renowned expert on infectious disease.

Let the games begin.

And I would have done just that had there been a single, solitary character here who appeared to be remotely human. People don't talk like this. People don't act like this. People don't make these sorts of choices, even in the midst of terrifying crisis; no matter how much they've had to drink or how far right their political beliefs have them leaning. I kept waiting for the story to tell me this wooden form of interactional lunacy was a product of the infectious event everyone was attempting to understand. Which it didn't. So I spent my time, from start to finish, in a literary holding pattern - scouting the terrain for a place to invest.

Still scouting.

I will say this: I suppose if you're looking for a plot device to completely rip off, you could do worse than to pluck one from the pages of Infinite Jest.

[Tom Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the plot of this book and the beginning really grabs you. Unfortunately, this is the high point in the book and the authors attempt at keeping my interest for the balance of the book falls short. Maybe it is just me, but I like story lines that make sense, are logical based on the characters and leave few unanswered questions. For example, what was Steamboat all about again? Was the whole town put to sleep or just the airport? How could all these people be out of it for, what 12 hours, and nobody else notice? How did the notorious Jackie get everybody back where they should be so when they woke up they did not give a second thought to the lost time? Why was one passenger dead from head trauma? Also, the authors seems to include extraneous dialogue that neither advances the plot nor helps with character development. The book in short was a good idea poorly executed.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. I liked the premise, but the plot changed into something else entirely. I never got a good sense of the characters and didn't particularly care for them or what was happening to them. I finished it because I was curious where it was going and how it would end. It's a quick, mystery read, but not outstanding.

[Nicole Byer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biggest crime of this book was the blurb on top comparing it to the likes of Stephen King and Michael Crichton. How dare they compare this garbage to those great authors. I was expecting to be taken on a thrilling ride with this book, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Didn't even live up to being a thriller, which was it's only job. This is a boring stalker tale with a ridiculous plot and completely unlikable characters. There's also blatant criticism of gun violence and how much we rely on technology.

Just go read Stephen King's book Cell. It's a better story with a similar premise

[Cat Jenkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author is touted as a Pulitzer Prize winner. So why is the writing so terrible?

The language is off. The plot moves at a glacial pace. The effort to end each chapter with a cliffhanger is so unnatural that, if this book were a muscle, it'd be suffering a severe sprain. It feels like a rough draft that's still waiting for the writer to go back and polish it. So many prepositions seemed wrong, giving the finished product the feel of having been written by someone for whom English is a second language.

What the hell is "crimson intensity" anyway?

"The bear started forward at them." So many sentences were like that. Just. Plain. Wrong. And so many red herrings and teasers that after a while I couldn't care about how any of them played out. I started wishing all the characters would fall into the catatonic state that afflicted most of the residents of Steamboat and just shut up.

Overall, it made for a very irritating read.

[StarMan]

VERDICT: 1.5 stars, not rounded up because of the many deceptions in advertising. This is NOT the promised 'Michael Crichton meets Stephen King.' It could have been 4 stars had it stuck to its promises, but alas...

Started out as 3.5 stars, went downhill. I probably would've liked it better if the back cover description had not been 90% misleading. And the front cover. And the synopsis here on GR.

"Breathtaking suspense" = NO

"breakneck pace"= NO

"While they were in the air, the world ended." = NO!

"[famous virologist] is at the center of the investigation" = There is no investigation, just some folks half-assing about and being dumb

On the plus side, the writing style is OK, and some mildly interesting stuff happened. But I was onto what the dealio was pretty quickly -- and I was disappointed.

[Liz B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I HATE when my reviews disappear. Ok, writing it again.

DNF at about page 80. The head hopping made me dizzy, and the creepy premise was totally undercut by boring backstory about the characters. Baseball and online dating, instead of pushing forward to find out what's happening and actually DOING SOMETHING. And then when finally, finally, finally someone is doing something...time for an extended flashback!!

No thanks. Back to the library with you!

[Judith · Rating 1 out of 5]

If only they had all died on arrival and left no one to tell the story. Then we could have avoided this made for tv misadventure where nothing makes sense. Alas, we were left with a small handful of oddballs who act and react like billiard balls---bouncing off walls in every direction. When I found myself cheering for the bear, I knew it was time to give it up.

[Megan Edwards · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm DNFing this one. I'm kind of tired of patronizing liberals with the one gun toting, insecure, unintelligent conservative. Can we get some new material, please? Plus, this was wayyyyy too slow moving. I don't even care how it ends.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grocery store impulse buy. Draw in because it said on the cover a cross between Stephen King and Micheal Crichton. Terrible, and this guy's an NYT Pulitzer Prize winner to boot. Horrible writing.

[Z Makila · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book certainly had a lot to say. And I've gotta say I didn't love how it went about doing so.
Dead On Arrival is written in 3rd person omniscient point of view and often switches between the thoughts and motivations of characters within paragraphs. I found myself rereading sentences a lot because I was confused. The entire book is sloppily written. It's riddled with typos, jumps between spots on the timeline occasionally with a title page noting so but often just within chapters with no warning. Every event that happened (and oh boy were there a lot of Events in this book) ended on a cliffhanger and then instead of writing out the action of the climax, the author paraphrases to explain how it all went down.
None of the characters are likeable—especially not Lyle, the main focus. Plagued with an alcohol problem spurred on by the evil cheating women in his life, he doesn't earn any sympathy points when he's mansplaining the simplest things, like the meaning of the "fancy word" onset. Onset.
Then the villain of the book is kind of a surprise that gets really confusing and unclear and all of a sudden this crazy stalker girl has got him captive while the author goes on a detour to talk about guns and how guns are good and we need guns and guns keep us safe.
Then all of a sudden he saves the world (in exposition, of course) and he's dating the pure beautiful smart pilot girl.
I did not care for this book.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good concept that got bogged down in the middle with poor pacing and awkward dialog. The opening scene is really good and grabs the reader immediately. Unfortunately, the author wastes that momentum with characters that are all hard to like and difficult to root for; when they leave the plane, I found myself hoping most would immediately drop dead from one thing or another. I didn't much care what the cause would be. That's a real shame when the primary mystery is the cause of all the illness/death surrounding the plane landing. I was hoping for more and was disappointed when I didn't find it. I received my copy from the publisher through edelweiss.

[Billie · Rating 2 out of 5]

More concept than compelling. The author had a good idea, but it just never quite came together for me and the crazy stalker was too cliched and felt like a way to minimize an otherwise smart woman. In fact, nearly every smart, powerful female character in this book ended up being minimized and/or victimized. Sigh. A resounding "meh".

[Christian · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished it, barely, skimming the last two thirds.

[Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows) · Rating 3 out of 5]

You're an infectious disease expert who slept through his flight only to wake up to find himself trapped on the plane. It seems everyone outside of the plane is dead. You take a chance and venture out to do some simple tests on one of the bodies. Turns out, the victim is not dead but nonfunctional. You rack your brain trying to figure out what these symptoms add up to and keep coming up blank. As panic increases you begin to wonder if it's a world worth saving after all.... technology is killing us and maybe we should just let it.

The opening chapters get you right into the action and leaves you deeply interested in what could possibly be happening with these dead but not dead people. The author definitely makes it a point regarding technology these days and how people are quick to plug in. He even mentions at one point about how people don't even look at each other when they talk anymore and I realized how sadly true this is these days. This tech thriller is fast paced. Going back and forth in time could get a little confusing in some places. Though this novel is sectioned off, within the sections are more back and forth that I couldn't quite wrap my head around. A pretty plausible story line which is scary in itself. I loved the pace of this read and the overall story line. I wish I had known a little bit more about the villain and the ending felt a little bit Hollywood. A fun, action filled thriller that will keep you entertained.

3.5 stars! Thank you to the publisher for this copy in return for my honest review.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only reason I finished this book is that I had nothing else to listen to in the car. Preposterous story, unrealistic characters, clunky writing and an unbelievable plot. Great premise; infectious disease MD on a plane where everyone but him, pilots and one other woman are dead, lands in Colorado Springs where everyone on the ground is dead. There are some interesting asides about our addiction to cell phones, but the characters and story were so unrealistic I am sorry I did not have a paper copy to slam across the floor.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just imagine. You've landed at a small regional airport somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The world has gone silent. There's nothing but static on every channel on the radio. The body of a man in a jumpsuit lies sprawled on the tarmac, and human figures inside the terminal are motionless. Is this beginning of a dystopian tale? Will people everywhere be victims of a mysterious pandemic? Or is something else happening here?

In Matt Richtel's debut novel, Dead on Arrival, something else is definitely going on. As will quickly become apparent, what appears to be a pandemic is somehow related to a top-secret project at Google. There, a small team of brilliant engineers is exploring the connection between information overload, memory, and attention. Has the experiment gone awry? We'll find out.

Dead on Arrival is loosely based on contemporary neurological research that is turning up disturbing findings. The information overload to which so many of us are subject through our mobile devices and social media is a problem on many levels. First, the information glut that keeps us glued to our screens can impair working (short-term) memory. Second, information overload is causing many of us to suffer from decision fatigue. Third, as The Economist has noted, "information overload can make people feel anxious and powerless: scientists have discovered that multitaskers produce more stress hormones." Lastly, our marriage with social media may be driving us apart, causing us to drift ever closer to political extremes (although some studies question this assertion). Matt Richtel has built his novel around these questions, speculating that the potential exists for electronic media to impact us in far worse ways.

Matt Richtel won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles at the New York Times about distracted driving. He later wrote a bestselling nonfiction book on the topic, A Deadly Wandering. Before writing Dead on Arrival, Richtel studied the impact on the human brain of living with "a deluge of data" from digital devices. He shared the thought that children's brains are developing differently from those of their parents and others of older generations. Richtel, a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, holds a Master's degree from the Columbia School of Journalism.

[Vakaris the Nosferatu · Rating 2 out of 5]

all reviews in one place: night mode reading ; skaitom nakties rezimu

About the Book: A virus renders it’s victims dead in moments. Having landed in a completely dark and silent airport, crew pulls a virologist into the cabin, in hopes for some explanation, guidelines, a plan, anything. Instead they realize something’s moving outside. And death is already inside the plane full of passengers. Or, well, their bodies.

My Opinion: A psycho genius who is determined to crush the world for the only man who ever thought like she did, the only man who ever truly seen her. Killer zombie virus is neither killer, nor zombie, nor a virus. Past initial tension it deteriorates very fast into your run of the mill race against time thriller, padded with even more boring flashbacks, and a super-doctor with powers to predict events or something like that. A very upsetting read.

[Myste · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went back and forth on this book, my rating, and how I felt about it.

To start, it was relatively well paced. Just as I was losing interest in backstory, it switched to current events and drew me in enough to keep me reading, albeit just barely.

It's a very fascinating concept, if nothing else -- an intelligent read in terms of context, and believable. I believe these events could happen, I understand the technology, and admire the exploitative nature the author adopted in regards to modern lifestyles and how one might use such conveniences to get the better of humanity.

That being said, I found the characters to be... one dimensional and unlikable. They were so flat, I saw through the whole big revelation from damn near the very beginning of the book. There was no substance to anyone, and it make for a boring and reluctant read. I didn't root for the good guys, I didn't root for the bad guys. I pretty much just didn't care about anyone. -1 star.

Related to but different from the preceding demerit, -1 star for pointless characters. I'm convinced Jerry's only purpose was an outlet for the author to expunge his hyper-critical ire toward gun owners. Jerry was made intentionally stupid, saying things that didn't make sense or weren't scene appropriate, just so the narrator could comment on how stupid he was with his gun. This was a continuing trend all throughout the book, and being a staunch first amendment supporter, I found it to be extremely grating.

For my own shallow satisfaction, I'm removing another -1 star for the hypocritical, contradictory virtue signalling. Mr. Richtel, for one who uses his literature to vent his frustration about politics and division, you sure do exercise a lot of it. Your political affiliation is clear and if you so believe the things you've said in this story about taking sides, then I agree with you entirely, but can tell you that based on the tone and content of this book, you do not practice it well.

-1 star for saying Berkley is only "slightly left leaning." Haha, j/k, but honestly, I'm tempted.

I still almost don't want to give this book two stars. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm very relieved it's over. This is one of the cases where perhaps the book is just not for me, and I thus cannot rationalize giving it only a single star rating; thus, DoA, you may keep your two stars.

I don't recommend this book if you have other things on your shelf to read. If this is however the only option, it's better than nothing.

[Amy Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

ScienceThrillers review: You cannot top the opening of Pulitzer prizewinning author Matt Richtel’s new techno-paranoid nightmare, DEAD ON ARRIVAL. For thriller setups, this is gold: A small commercial jet lands at a smallish commercial airport, at night, in the winter. Communications from the ground had ceased minutes before. The airport is dark. No one, nothing is moving or greets the plane. The creepiness and mystery play out for 150 pages, split into two sections by an interlude from three years earlier. Then something else entirely happens. The compulsion to find out what’s really going on guaranteed that I would keep reading.

Based on online reviews, readers are polarized by this book. Some love it, some hate it. I think part of the issue is expectations. Richtel sets up a stunning, action/plague thriller opening but the long middle of the book does not read like that kind of story. It’s more literary, cerebral. Richtel has a particular style of psychological writing, using subtext and asides to enhance the dialog. Not everyone will like it. But for those who do, it’s a home run. In addition, the protagonist, like others in Richtel’s books, is a flawed and at times unlikeable human being. For some readers, dislike for a main character directly transfers into dislike for the story.

I’m a fan of Richtel’s work and I like the way he plays with a book’s reality–always slippery, uncertain. Things you think are true may not always be what they appear. DEAD ON ARRIVAL targets themes that run through both his fiction and investigative journalism: an unease with the extremes to which technology is dragging us, a questioning of the assumptions of Silicon Valley. DEAD ON ARRIVAL is a scary story for our time.

[Denise]

A world out of control -- people obsessed with cell phone technology -- this heartpouding thriller is part social commentary and part a call to action. Put away your phone!

"Instead of even trying to figure out what was right, people buried themselves in their devicees. People talked to you while looking at their phones, lost in entirely different realities. It was like the world was missing situational awareness."

What a ride! This was nonstop action with a sci fi twist on the typical suspense thriller. So believable and so scary. There is only one man who might be able to stop one woman from putting everyone on "pause". Dr. Lyle Martin, infectious disease specialist -- he'd gone into places no one else dared go to stop a plague or a dangerous health situation. Unfortunately, he's caught the eye and the ardor of a lunatic. This is tech stuff, out of his league, and he's super depressed anyway from his own downward spiral. Can he pull it together in time to stop his obsessed stalker from doing a soft reset on the human race?

Loved this one and read it in a matter of hours. Fast-paced and full of confused and clueless characters, the narrative takes hold and doesn't let go. Wasn't sure at first where this story was going to lead, but I definitely enjoyed the follow. Loved the medical science details and the premise.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper Collins Publishers for the e-book ARC to review. I realized later that I had read one of this author's previous books, and was happy to return for this one. I know that I will be looking for the next.

[Joe Crowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

So while you're on a plane trip, a super-bug hits and everyone who isn't on your plane dies.

That's how the book *starts.*

It doesn't go great for the cast of characters in the book from there. Bad stuff happening in the midst of a plane trip isn't a super-fun thing for those who travel in the holiday season, but at least no one on the plane turns into vampires with tentacles that zap out of their mouths like "The Strain."

This is a tense thriller that seems like it should have already been a movie. It's available in convenient book form. Read it, but preferably not during a plane ride.

[Joseph Finder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely scary. It would be hard to imagine a more timely novel than DEAD ON ARRIVAL, which starts as a Twilight Zone episode and becomes an all-too-plausible cautionary tale about the destructive force of our mobile devices. This may be the book that breaks your texting habit.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed with the conclusion, but overall, kept me turning pages.

[Tony Laplume · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover copy wants you to think only Stephen King meets Michael Crichton, and while that’s certainly fair, I’d certainly like to toss in Dan Brown and the TV cop procedural Criminal Minds.

The show usually hinges on an obviously deranged “unsub” (unidentified subject) whom the good guys nail at the end, sometimes with some special obsession based on one of them. That’s how Dead on Arrival ends. Anything more and it’s spoiler territory. It is what it is.

Richtel borrows Harrison Ford as a model for his main character from Dan Brown (in case you still have Tom Hanks’ mullet on the brain, that’s actually how Robert Langdon is described in the books, as an Indiana Jones cool professor who actually looks like Indiana Jones). The writing is much the same template, although you’d be forgiven for overlooking that fact by Brown’s penchant for city tours and frequent adrenaline spikes where Richtel favors deliberate buildup and decent insight into psychology.

His cast of characters otherwise are a Stephen King set exploring a Michael Crichton crisis, although his Chekov’s Gun fires differently and, well, usually Crichton would just spend time whittling down his cast. Richtel does chart his own course, focusing on the latent distrust of modern technology you can find in ordinary society rather than in som fanciful thought experiment.

The funniest thing is that he wrote this just a few years before 2020 did its level best to fulfill exactly what Richtel’s antagonist most feared, and…we actually survived that. Somehow. Much of 2021 was focused simultaneously telling us we didn’t but also proving that we did.

Life is strange like that. A thriller like this helps explain our fears to us. It’s worth a read.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 This was a cool science and techo-thriller that fans of Crichton might like. A washed up genius scientist has to figure out what happened to him on a strange flight that looks more and more like a conspiracy, but has a twist I didn't see coming. Very much a statement on how technology is affecting and indeed invading our lives, this is a fast read that I'd recommend for your next vacation.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into when I started this. I'd seen it on a library blog about good upcoming horror novels, and requested it, and ended up finishing it in one giant bite.
I think I was expecting zombies, and it certainly wasn't that. But it was very good! Gave me the creepy crawlies.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great characters and a thrilling plot. I'll definitely have to read more of Matt Richtel's books.

[David Cavaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot intrigued me and chapter one was captivating. Afterwards, the plot descended into mediocrity and one dimensional characters. Felt like a discarded Bond plot.