Stinger

Robert Cavanaugh #2

by Nancy Kress

A rash of strokes among otherwise healthy black men transforms FBI Agent Robert Cavanaugh's otherwise boring post in Southern Maryland into a suddenly fascinating and dangerous job as he investigates. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Fiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty novels, four story collections, three books on writing fiction, and over a hundred short stories. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her most recent novel, Observer, co-written with Dr. Robert Lanza, concerns the nature of consciousness, reality, and love. Forthcoming in 2026 is an historical fantasy, The Queen’s Witch, set in the court of Henry VIII. Nancy’s work has been translated into two dozen languages, none of which she can read. She has taught writing at various venues in the United States and abroad, including Leipzig, Beijing, both Clarions, and the annual SF-writing intensive workshop Taos Toolbox. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Pippin, the world’s cutest Chihuahua.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stinger is a very good bioterrorism/medical thriller, a CDC/FBI team-up if you will. It features Robert Cavanaugh from a previous novel, Oaths and Miracles. It's about a strain of malaria that seems to be fatally targeting Black people. As the death count grows, Cavanaugh is in a race to save lives and avoid an epidemic. It's a good, suspenseful page-turner; Kress writes excellent characters and her scientific detail seems spot on. Her thoughts and observations of racial tensions seem as timely now as they were when the novel appeared in 1998.

[Chris Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good book about a joint FBI/CDC investigation into an anomaly of strokes in the Maryland area among people of color.

I say surprising because I know Nancy Kress as a Sci-Fi author, and this is a bit out of that mold.

The story is very plausible, characters are good, politics and personal lives that get in the way of an investigation seem genuine.

Good pacing, good story arc, fine resolution, it's all here.

Makes me more interested in what else she has delved her writing talents in to.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me five years to read because of the social embarrassment I felt when the lead scientist cracked and punched a youth for pretending to be dying. I couldn't go back!

Finally I talked myself into inching along and made it through and then the rest of the book went well. I like how the ending is left unsatisfying for the characters and for me, and how the characters made peace with that. I like how Kress is clearly an adult (more so than me!) and her characters are too.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ms. Kress delivers a great sequel to Oaths and Miracles. Not science fiction so much as possibility (like most of her work), this continues the tale of FBI Agent Robert Cavanaugh's slightly bumbling quest to find the truth about a strangely mutated strain of Plasmodium falciparum. Packed with anecdotes and quotes to round out the thriller, it's a great story.

[Jeannejude · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid procedural thriller, with a science background by Nancy Kress who is better known for her "Beggar's" Trilogy. The mixture of science and crime procedural style makes for a quick entertaining read, but this is not a book about larger ideas as her other works. Although the writer's voice is similar the immersion into large ideas as well as compelling characters isn't as strong in this.

[Kay Prell · Rating 4 out of 5]

even better than the previous Robert Cavanaugh (Oaths and Miracles). Robert continues hilariously inept at gender relations - and the book goes from a 3 or 3.5 to a solid 4 as soon as Melanie sets foot in Africa. Gripping.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kress, Nancy. Stinger. Tor, 1998.
A healthy presidential hopeful drops dead from a stroke complicated by malaria he has no business having in the United States. And suddenly there is a cluster of similar cases in southern Maryland. An FBI agent and an epidemiologist work the problem. Stinger is a competent biotech thriller that actually gives a shout-out to Chloroquine, the antimalarial drug that has been in the news lately. Because it is a book by Nancy Kress there is also some routine domestic drama to go along with the scientific mystery plot.

[Connor Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb called it a biomedical thriller, and how apt a title that is!
A mystery that slowly unravels not through shootouts and car chases, but lan work, diligence, conversation, and good old fashioned having a big think.
Nice to have a protagonist who isn't a sex god that women throw themselves at, in fact he's quite adept at torpedoing any relationship he gets involved in.

[Elizabeth T. Yndo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating

All the elements of compelling science fiction with an emphasis on science. The reader is in the minds and hearts of compelling characters you come to care about solving an all too probable horror of a crime.

[Kieran · Rating 3 out of 5]

For probably the first 2/3 of the book it was going to be a 2-star "just alright" impression on me, but the last part after Melanie goes to Arlo through to the end pulled it up to an enjoyable read overall.
I think it would be a more engaging mystery if the release of the mosquitoes wasn't shown to the reader in chapter 1. I also found the race relations asides that Melanie goes into before Arlo a bit clumsily inserted, and her theories about the origin and purpose of the disease don't make sense if you think about it for a minute (All this said I do like her character overall.) The villains are almost completely absent during the story which takes a bit of the wind out of how threatening they seem.
The bureau director and how pragmatic he is was written well.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nancy Kress is one of my favorite authors, and this book is a good example of why. The characters are interesting, but her real strength is that the science is believable and all-too-relevant to the world we now live in. It's worth nothing that although this book and the first mystery involving Robert Cavanaugh were recently reprinted in 2014, they were originally published in 1996. That doesn't detract at all from the power of the story, or even its timeliness.

[Christopher Grant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Page 4 said, "She wore one of those African head scarf things." I didn't get past page 4....

[Jocelyn Montalvo Cullum]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14093368

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another thriller that doesn't quite live up to expectations.