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The Carrier
A brilliant Harvard Ph.D. candidate discovers a cure for cancer-a discovery that pits him against his mentor and the FBI in a cross-country race against time.
Jack Collier is a brilliant but troubled Ph.D. candidate at Harvard-the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. But he has an idea that will make medical train Strep A bacteria (also known as flesh-eating bacteria) to attack tumors rather than healthy flesh. When his mentor, a reknowned professor, steals Jack's idea and sets him up to get expelled from Harvard, Jack is nearly destroyed. And something has gone wrong with the cure. As Jack travels across the country, he unknowingly leaves a wake of death in his tracks. A sympathetic FBI agent wants to find Jack and stop him-before those that want to see his genius silenced find him first. Filled with groundbreaking medical and scientific details, Holden Scott's latest thriller is his most fascinating and imaginative yet.
Jack Collier is a brilliant but troubled Ph.D. candidate at Harvard-the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. But he has an idea that will make medical train Strep A bacteria (also known as flesh-eating bacteria) to attack tumors rather than healthy flesh. When his mentor, a reknowned professor, steals Jack's idea and sets him up to get expelled from Harvard, Jack is nearly destroyed. And something has gone wrong with the cure. As Jack travels across the country, he unknowingly leaves a wake of death in his tracks. A sympathetic FBI agent wants to find Jack and stop him-before those that want to see his genius silenced find him first. Filled with groundbreaking medical and scientific details, Holden Scott's latest thriller is his most fascinating and imaginative yet.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 13, 2013
Holden Scott's "The Carrier" is a medical science thriller in the vein of Robin Cook. At least, according to more than one blurb on the back of the book. I have read only one Cook novel in my life, and I was less than impressed. I was actually downright insulted. Granted, that was only one book, so I realize how unfair my judgment sounds. That said, i was not expecting to like "The Carrier".
Scott, who was in his late-20s when he wrote and published this novel in 2000, has written a surprisingly decent thriller. It is certainly flawed in many ways, but I attribute those flaws mainly to youth and inexperience. (This was apparently Scott's second published novel.) Despite its flaws, however, the novel is a fast-paced, suspenseful thriller with an exciting, edge-of-your-seat climax. The novel begs to be made into a movie (one of its minor flaws), and I'm personally surprised it was never picked up by anyone in Hollywood as it would have probably been better than any of the moronic litany of remakes, sequels, and movies based on video games and/or comic books that nobody over the age of 13 actually cares about. But I digress...
The protagonist of the novel, Jack Collier, has just been kicked out of medical school for plagiarism. It's a given that he is innocent of the crime. What's worse, though, is that his cure for cancer---the product of months of labor sequestering himself in the lab at the expense of classes, friendships, and his own health---is no longer his. The man he once thought of as his mentor, Professor Dutton, has taken credit for the cure. Now, Dutton is on the short list for a Nobel peace Prize, making the TV talk show circuit, and has a million-dollar book deal in the works.
Collier could care less about the fame and fortune, however. His only reason for creating the cure in the first place was his girlfriend, Angie, who is diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now that's he been kicked off-campus, Collier decides to go across the country to find Angie and cure her. Unfortunately, something horrible has gone wrong. Unbeknownst to Collier, anyone he touches dies a horrific death of what appears to be streptoccocus A, better known as "the flesh-eating bacteria". Only instead of hours, the victim literally has minutes before every bit of skin and tissue is stripped clean off their bones. He is leaving a wake of bodies across the country, and soon the FBI is involved.
Tyler Ross, an FBI agent from the Science division, is called in to investigate. Unlike the Special Agent in charge, Vincent Moon, she is skeptical that Collier is a bioterrorist, purposefully infecting random people with this horrible strain of Strep A. It doesn't fit Collier's profile. Moon, however, doesn't care about profiles. He only wants one thing: Collier dead.
A race against time begins once Ross realizes that Moon is literally psychotic and will stop at nothing to kill Collier, despite any of the evidence that surfaces that suggests Collier may not even know that he's a carrier of the bacteria.
While the science in Scott's book may be questionable (another minor flaw), it is outweighed by his wise decision to focus on the human drama within the story rather than the science. Scott's characters are well-developed and do not feel like stock characters in a run-of-the-mill thriller, unlike Cook's characters, who seemed more like stereotypes than actual people. While Scott may be guilty of employing some stereotypes himself, the reader always gets a clear sense of each character's motivations, and they are, for the most part, believable. If they weren't, I doubt I would have enjoyed the book as much as I did.
Scott, who was in his late-20s when he wrote and published this novel in 2000, has written a surprisingly decent thriller. It is certainly flawed in many ways, but I attribute those flaws mainly to youth and inexperience. (This was apparently Scott's second published novel.) Despite its flaws, however, the novel is a fast-paced, suspenseful thriller with an exciting, edge-of-your-seat climax. The novel begs to be made into a movie (one of its minor flaws), and I'm personally surprised it was never picked up by anyone in Hollywood as it would have probably been better than any of the moronic litany of remakes, sequels, and movies based on video games and/or comic books that nobody over the age of 13 actually cares about. But I digress...
The protagonist of the novel, Jack Collier, has just been kicked out of medical school for plagiarism. It's a given that he is innocent of the crime. What's worse, though, is that his cure for cancer---the product of months of labor sequestering himself in the lab at the expense of classes, friendships, and his own health---is no longer his. The man he once thought of as his mentor, Professor Dutton, has taken credit for the cure. Now, Dutton is on the short list for a Nobel peace Prize, making the TV talk show circuit, and has a million-dollar book deal in the works.
Collier could care less about the fame and fortune, however. His only reason for creating the cure in the first place was his girlfriend, Angie, who is diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now that's he been kicked off-campus, Collier decides to go across the country to find Angie and cure her. Unfortunately, something horrible has gone wrong. Unbeknownst to Collier, anyone he touches dies a horrific death of what appears to be streptoccocus A, better known as "the flesh-eating bacteria". Only instead of hours, the victim literally has minutes before every bit of skin and tissue is stripped clean off their bones. He is leaving a wake of bodies across the country, and soon the FBI is involved.
Tyler Ross, an FBI agent from the Science division, is called in to investigate. Unlike the Special Agent in charge, Vincent Moon, she is skeptical that Collier is a bioterrorist, purposefully infecting random people with this horrible strain of Strep A. It doesn't fit Collier's profile. Moon, however, doesn't care about profiles. He only wants one thing: Collier dead.
A race against time begins once Ross realizes that Moon is literally psychotic and will stop at nothing to kill Collier, despite any of the evidence that surfaces that suggests Collier may not even know that he's a carrier of the bacteria.
While the science in Scott's book may be questionable (another minor flaw), it is outweighed by his wise decision to focus on the human drama within the story rather than the science. Scott's characters are well-developed and do not feel like stock characters in a run-of-the-mill thriller, unlike Cook's characters, who seemed more like stereotypes than actual people. While Scott may be guilty of employing some stereotypes himself, the reader always gets a clear sense of each character's motivations, and they are, for the most part, believable. If they weren't, I doubt I would have enjoyed the book as much as I did.
November 3, 2011
In THE CARRIER by Holden Scott, Jack Collier dedicates his life to a radical cure of cancer to save his girlfriend--flesh-eating bacteria redesigned to eat tumors. But something goes wrong, turning him into a carrier of disease that consumes its victims in seconds. Great writing, Michael Crichton-quality blend of science and fiction, but a little too neat--e.g., the disease never becomes a plague--leaving me wanting.
June 11, 2021
The Carrier is a good thriller made more poignant by the real-life events of the past year and a half. It was not, however, quite the story I had been expecting since I added this book to my reading list years ago.
The bad guys in this story outnumber the good guys. And yet, everybody considers the other people to be the bad guys.
The worst bad guy is a vial of mutated bacteria. It, of course, has no opinion of any other people. It just eats them down to the bones. It is, of course, genetically engineered. But it was genetically engineered to be a miracle cure for cancer, not a vicious killer.
Jack Collier is the Ph.D. Candidate grad student who engineered the bacteria to be the cancer cure. He is a few days and a few tests from having it ready to present to his professors and the world, and then to take to his former girlfriend who is dying of cancer and was the inspiration for the cure. But suddenly, inexplicably he is accused of plagiarism, kicked out of school, and locked out of his lab.
Jack expected his mentor, Michael Dutton, to help him out in this situation, but it turned out that Dutton was behind the push to have him discredited and expelled. A few days later, Jack’s research appears in a major scientific journal – under Dutton’s name.
Jack decides to get revenge – although he doesn’t intend for his revenge to be as deadly as it turns out to be. He visits Dutton’s home and steals some money – it turns out Dutton isn’t exactly honest and above-board in areas other than his professional life either. Then he breaks into his old lab and steals a vial of his cure, but leaves a second vial behind. He unwisely leaves a somewhat mean message on the lab’s blackboard on his way out.
So, when the FBI is called in hours later to investigate the bizarre deaths of two other grad students, one of whom was a senator’s daughter, the lead investigator immediately pegs Jack as a sick murdering bastard who needs to be killed. Jack knows nothing of all this.
There are two main investigators for the FBI. Detective Moon, the operations guy, is ex-military and a close personal friend of the senator whose daughter was killed. The senator has all but requested to have Jack found and killed, and Detective Moon would be more than happy to kill him anyway because that’s how he prefers to operate. The other detective is the biology expert Tyler Ross. Detective Moon disrespects her because she is a woman and because she is a scientist. She is horrified by his record of having more kills than any other FBI agent.
Jack travels across the country on the trail of his girlfriend, Angie, not realizing for a long time that he is leaving a trail of skeletons behind him. His cancer cure has mutated – or been re-engineered – into a flesh-eating bacteria. He begins to realize he is being pursued, but at first, thinks it is because of the money. When he finally realizes that a chain of bizarre deaths seems to be related to him, he breaks into another lab to determine the cause and to figure out what, if anything, he can do about it.
The bad guys in this story outnumber the good guys. And yet, everybody considers the other people to be the bad guys.
The worst bad guy is a vial of mutated bacteria. It, of course, has no opinion of any other people. It just eats them down to the bones. It is, of course, genetically engineered. But it was genetically engineered to be a miracle cure for cancer, not a vicious killer.
Jack Collier is the Ph.D. Candidate grad student who engineered the bacteria to be the cancer cure. He is a few days and a few tests from having it ready to present to his professors and the world, and then to take to his former girlfriend who is dying of cancer and was the inspiration for the cure. But suddenly, inexplicably he is accused of plagiarism, kicked out of school, and locked out of his lab.
Jack expected his mentor, Michael Dutton, to help him out in this situation, but it turned out that Dutton was behind the push to have him discredited and expelled. A few days later, Jack’s research appears in a major scientific journal – under Dutton’s name.
Jack decides to get revenge – although he doesn’t intend for his revenge to be as deadly as it turns out to be. He visits Dutton’s home and steals some money – it turns out Dutton isn’t exactly honest and above-board in areas other than his professional life either. Then he breaks into his old lab and steals a vial of his cure, but leaves a second vial behind. He unwisely leaves a somewhat mean message on the lab’s blackboard on his way out.
So, when the FBI is called in hours later to investigate the bizarre deaths of two other grad students, one of whom was a senator’s daughter, the lead investigator immediately pegs Jack as a sick murdering bastard who needs to be killed. Jack knows nothing of all this.
There are two main investigators for the FBI. Detective Moon, the operations guy, is ex-military and a close personal friend of the senator whose daughter was killed. The senator has all but requested to have Jack found and killed, and Detective Moon would be more than happy to kill him anyway because that’s how he prefers to operate. The other detective is the biology expert Tyler Ross. Detective Moon disrespects her because she is a woman and because she is a scientist. She is horrified by his record of having more kills than any other FBI agent.
Jack travels across the country on the trail of his girlfriend, Angie, not realizing for a long time that he is leaving a trail of skeletons behind him. His cancer cure has mutated – or been re-engineered – into a flesh-eating bacteria. He begins to realize he is being pursued, but at first, thinks it is because of the money. When he finally realizes that a chain of bizarre deaths seems to be related to him, he breaks into another lab to determine the cause and to figure out what, if anything, he can do about it.
October 10, 2022
first: These dates are estimates all I remember is I got it during summer and was hooked immediately that i finished it within about a week or so
SECOND: this is the first book I've read in probably a year, I may be very literate but I'm extremely particular of what I read.
I was interested strictly by the cover at first, reading it because I was bored and waiting for my sister to hurry up at the store we were at (had a whole bunch of secondhand cds, music tapes, books, consoles, video games and controllers. Book section was super disorganized and The Carrier happened to be on top) but Jack was such a silly guy I simply HAD to get it. I'm so glad I did, because of it now I read books more often, although, I'm still picky. Anything medical thriller is pretty much good as gold for me though.
This book has really just reminded me how much I really do love to read and write in general. It's actually made me love medical fiction as a whole and I kind of want to pursue a job in healthcare (like a surgeon or just doctor in general) because of it (and a lot of other factors) (also I feel I should mention I'm a sophomore in highschool so all future careers are subject to change).
ANYWAY! THIS BOOK WAS SUCH. A FUN. READ. HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!! It uses some difficult vocab but it's also super comprehensible for me, y'know? Sometimes I can read difficult books (i.e stephen king. sorry bro) and understand what's happening but it's just... written in such a pretentious way that it's annoying to get through, ya feel me? The Carrier doesn't fee like that and that's what I love!
If I could discover and read The Carrier for the first time again, I would take that opportunity in an instant.
SECOND: this is the first book I've read in probably a year, I may be very literate but I'm extremely particular of what I read.
I was interested strictly by the cover at first, reading it because I was bored and waiting for my sister to hurry up at the store we were at (had a whole bunch of secondhand cds, music tapes, books, consoles, video games and controllers. Book section was super disorganized and The Carrier happened to be on top) but Jack was such a silly guy I simply HAD to get it. I'm so glad I did, because of it now I read books more often, although, I'm still picky. Anything medical thriller is pretty much good as gold for me though.
This book has really just reminded me how much I really do love to read and write in general. It's actually made me love medical fiction as a whole and I kind of want to pursue a job in healthcare (like a surgeon or just doctor in general) because of it (and a lot of other factors) (also I feel I should mention I'm a sophomore in highschool so all future careers are subject to change).
ANYWAY! THIS BOOK WAS SUCH. A FUN. READ. HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!! It uses some difficult vocab but it's also super comprehensible for me, y'know? Sometimes I can read difficult books (i.e stephen king. sorry bro) and understand what's happening but it's just... written in such a pretentious way that it's annoying to get through, ya feel me? The Carrier doesn't fee like that and that's what I love!
If I could discover and read The Carrier for the first time again, I would take that opportunity in an instant.
February 3, 2022
This exciting chase story gets a charge of topicality from the latest discoveries in genetics. The author has a lot of bright, bold ideas for characters, action sequences, and scientific innovation. If you stop to think about it, you spot the absurdities, but the author knows how to keep you moving. Fast-paced and suspenseful.
September 18, 2014
4.5 stars
I really enjoyed this fast paced novel of greed and hubris and one mans determination to take credit for another young mans medical research and discovery of a cure for cancer. In the earl pages of the novel student Jack Collier is set up by his professor for plagiarism and quickly expelled from school. He is unwilling to give up without a fight and breaks into his old lab to remove the fruits of his labour. Little does he know that his professor has already tampered with it and it will turn him into a carrier of a bacteria so savage that it kills within seconds. Other students are sent to the lab to move the "cure" and are found dead in such a way that it terrifies all who see it. While Jack was not the cause of these deaths, the father of one of the victims is an influential politician out for revenge against whoever is responsable. He believes that person is Jack, and so a manhunt begins with FBI involvement. One of the investigators is a woman with scientific background and the other is a hardened killer who rarely solves a crime without using violence himself and leaving the "subject" dead on most occasions. Jack is off to search for his girlfriend who has been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. As he travels, the bodies start piling up behind him, but he is totally oblivious an has no idea that his touch can kill. without giving away any more of the story I can tell you that I was firmly pulled in and had trouble putting this book down. The scientific details were no doubt imperfect, but believable enough that to me as a reader it could have happened as told.
I really enjoyed this fast paced novel of greed and hubris and one mans determination to take credit for another young mans medical research and discovery of a cure for cancer. In the earl pages of the novel student Jack Collier is set up by his professor for plagiarism and quickly expelled from school. He is unwilling to give up without a fight and breaks into his old lab to remove the fruits of his labour. Little does he know that his professor has already tampered with it and it will turn him into a carrier of a bacteria so savage that it kills within seconds. Other students are sent to the lab to move the "cure" and are found dead in such a way that it terrifies all who see it. While Jack was not the cause of these deaths, the father of one of the victims is an influential politician out for revenge against whoever is responsable. He believes that person is Jack, and so a manhunt begins with FBI involvement. One of the investigators is a woman with scientific background and the other is a hardened killer who rarely solves a crime without using violence himself and leaving the "subject" dead on most occasions. Jack is off to search for his girlfriend who has been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. As he travels, the bodies start piling up behind him, but he is totally oblivious an has no idea that his touch can kill. without giving away any more of the story I can tell you that I was firmly pulled in and had trouble putting this book down. The scientific details were no doubt imperfect, but believable enough that to me as a reader it could have happened as told.
December 8, 2013
Genre: thriller
Rating: 3.75
I listened to this book.
There is nothing like a good book and dogs to keep you warm when temperatures are below zero. I enjoyed The Carrier; couldn't stop listening.
Dick Hill does a great job narrating.
Rating: 3.75
I listened to this book.
There is nothing like a good book and dogs to keep you warm when temperatures are below zero. I enjoyed The Carrier; couldn't stop listening.
Dick Hill does a great job narrating.
November 30, 2015
I'm always a sucker for a good medical thriller and this one did not disappoint. Yeah, so there were lots of implausible parts but the overall premise was excellent. It was fast paced and would make a great action movie complete with lots of gory CGI effects.
March 6, 2013
A simple easy read, a little suspense of what will happen.
October 5, 2013
Really good book but not really thrilled with the ending!!
Read
December 13, 2013This could be optioned into a really great film with the right screenwriter and director. Go for the R rating for the more graphic parts.
June 9, 2015
Not bad. A cross of the board game Pandemic and the movie "The Fugitive". The author is young so I look forward to more of his work as he hones his skills.
June 26, 2015
Summer reading.
July 18, 2015
Unrealistic and a little silly but a fun read none the less. I enjoyed it.
March 21, 2013
Biomedical action/adventure. A real page turner.
Read
February 2, 2018This could be optioned into a really great film with the right screenwriter and director. Go for the R rating for the more graphic parts.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews