The Cobweb

by Neal Stephenson, J. Frederick George

From his triumphant debut with Snow Crash to the stunning success of his latest novel, Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson has quickly become the voice of a generation. In this now-classic political thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a savagely witty, chillingly topical tale set in the tense moments of the Gulf War.

When a foreign exchange student is found murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small college town—all the way to the Middle East. Shady events at the school reveal that a powerful department is using federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what it’s producing is a very nasty bug.

Navigating a plot that leads from his own backyard to Washington, D.C., to the Gulf, where his Army Reservist wife has been called to duty, Banks realizes he may be the only person who can stop the wholesale slaughtering of thousands of Americans. It’s a lesson in foreign policy he’ll never forget.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Audiobook, War, Espionage

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Neal Stephenson is the author of Reamde, Anathem, and the three-volume historical epic the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World), as well as Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Thriller con casi todos los ingredientes del Bestseller generalista, pero que no lo fue.-

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro La telaraña (publicación original: The Cobweb, 1996) nos presenta a Clyde Banks, ayudante del sheriff del condado de Forks, a James Gabor Millikan, del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, a Betsy Vandeventer, analista de la CIA y a su hermano, Kevin Vandeventer, responsable del Centro de Investigación de Ciencias Agrícolas Scheidelmann de la Escuela de Agricultura de la UIO. Sus respectivos trabajos los llevan a que sus caminos se crucen, de diferentes formas, a partir del hallazgo de un cadáver, de las sospechas sobre el uso de fondos federales con destino a Iraq y de las propias estrategias iraquíes antes de la primera Guerra del Golfo.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre Stephenson book is better than no Stephenson book at all.

[Choko · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** 3.25 ***

I have to be honest, I did not enjoy this book very much and only finished it because I have an illness - a compulsion to finish every book or series I start, of go insane thinking about it with a feeling that I have something hanging over my head and it makes me feel twitchy!!!

I realize this is not a shining recommendation for the book, but I don't think I would recommend it to anyone I know anyway... I am not dissing the author - I adore most of his work and he is one of my all time favorite!!! I am only saying that this particular work was not for me. Than why did I give it the 3.25 stars? Because even in this not for me book Stephenson is still quite brilliant. The man can write and he is capable of delivering some of the most intricate stories put to print! And for a book written in the 90's he has an almost prophetic view of sleeper cells of terrorists in Democratically run societies... I just have an aversion to predominantly political plots - if I was interested, I only need to turn on one of the news TV channels... So, I rather stick with romance and Fantasy, or at the most, historical... And Stephenson has great books in those genres :-)

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just became aware that Stephenson also sometimes writes (or perhaps wrote) under the pseudonym Stephen Bury, and that he had two books I'd never read or heard of. It was like Christmas came early.

As someone said below, a mediocre Stephenson novel is better than no Stephenson novel at all, and I'm not even sure I would call this a mediocre Stephenson novel. It's definitely an early one, and it's pure political thriller, not science fiction at all.

You can feel him bursting to get all his cleverness out at once. He's still developing his writing style. What later evolved into a charming style at this point sometimes comes off as pointless details and long, boring narration of everyday tasks. However, the characters are wonderfully Stephensonian. (And from this and Reamde, we learn never to be a weaselly guy who can't handle his alcohol and is ungallant toward women in a Stephenson novel.)

All that being said, I enjoyed this novel enormously. It was wonderful fun to read a novel that takes place in the Midwest, where I grew up, and Washington, DC, where I live now. The characters were well-drawn and interesting. Stephenson played with some interesting writing techniques, such as withholding key plot points but showing how characters reacted to them. If all political thrillers were this smart and funny, I'd read a lot more of them. (Or maybe I'm misremembering Clancy, and he was a real knee-slapper.)

I highly recommend this book for Stephenson fans, and those who might not yet be.

[Laura L. Van Dam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thriller político sobre la Guerra de Irak.

No parece escrito por Stephenson (es una colaboración con su tío) aunque es entretenido, sin sobresalir.

[Janet]

I thoroughly enjoyed Neal Stephenson's Zodiac and Snow Crash, and loved The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. I completely & totally bounced off of the Baroque novels. I put the first one down at about page 300, only to have a friend tell me that "it really picks up after about page 400". Sorry, nothing should be that bloated.

The two novels that he wrote with his uncle, and published under the name Stephen Bury, are The Cobweb and Interface. I really enjoyed both these books when I originally read them, and when I was putting together a survival pack of paperbacks to read during our move, I put them in. I just finished The Cobweb, and loved it again. It has a suspenseful plot involving biological warfare, academic shenanigans with grant money, and CIA/FBI political infighting. I like me some suspense, but what makes me love this book are the characters, and the observations about people and cultures.

Part of the action takes place in a fictionalized Ames, Iowa. It's told from the perspective of a sheriff's deputy, Clyde, who becomes friends with a foreign grad student, and is seeing some odd things happening, all while dealing with his wife being called up by the Army reservers and caring for their baby. His campaign for sheriff is very funny, as is juggling stake-outs and a baby.

The rest of the action is in Washington, D.C., told by Betsy Vandeventer. She's an analyst at the CIA, and she "exceeds her task" and spots the games being played with money going to Iraq for agricultural assistance. She's a nice girl from Idaho, who is trying to shake off some of the nice. I kinda love that one of the main characters in the book is a young woman who is overweight.

One of the scenes I love is when a mucky-muck from D.C. meets with Clyde at a restaurant in Ames. Clyde is very uncomfortable when Hennessy ignores the "Please wait to be seated" sign, and walks over to a big booth that's out of earshot of the other diners. Clyde feels that everyone is looking at the 2 of them taking up a booth that should be saved for a bigger party. They happen to be discussing a plot for biological weapons, but that doesn't mean you should be rude Another scene is Hennessy managing to take control over someone else's meeting in Washington, by being quieter than anyone else. It's delicious observation of people's behavior.

The book is set just before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and was published in 1996.

[Alle Bücher müssen gelesen werden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr schickes Buch, von dem man einiges lernen kann was das erzählen von Geschichten angeht. Außerdem erkennt man viel von dem was Stephenson in späteren Jahren auszeichen wird: historische und politische Tiefe, mäandernder Schreibstiel, Figuren mit "diversen" Hintergrund.

Wenn man das Buch zusammen mit "Interface" betrachtet: Stephenson wollte wohl eine Karriere starten als Polit-Thiller Autor. Mit "Zodiak" hat er dann scheine Schreibe simplifiziert, wohl um massentauglicher zu werden. Mit "Cryptonomnicon" und "Baroque" hat er dann wieder aus dem Brunnen geschröpt, aus dem auch "Interface" und "Cobweb" stammen.

Die moderne Variante von "Cobweb" wäre dann wohl "Reamde": ein rasanter Thriller mit bunten Figuren und interresanten Orten und viel Bewegung.

Sollte "Reamde" als Hörbuch kaufen.

[Poetic Justice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely, if ever, can a joint venture in fiction writing leave such a complete feeling at the end. One example is this one. Another is Interface, predictably enough by the exact same duo.

The writing is so seamlessly forged, it's impossible to tell where one author stops and the other begins. Fast paced, flowing, genuinely funny at times, witty and sarcastic in its entirety, it's one of those books easy on the eye, but engaging enough to let the reader finish it in one go.

Lots of main characters, intricately woven story threads, emotionally charged milestones, all culminating to an exhilarating end.

What it couldn't come clear from though is a couple of Hollywood traits: the honest hero through hell fire and brimstone escapes unscathed, America prevails above all in the end, and life goes on beautifully in rural undertones everywhere else...

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, you got me. Red-handed. I surrender. I admit it. I am one of the foreign students that the authors are talking about, who came into this country on the merit of just my brains, who went through the grist mill of a post-graduate program, who found a job below my qualifications, worked at it until something better came along. Yes, all true. And the wonderful thing that happened along the way was ...

... the melting pot, where:

 cultures change, society adopts, people transform, foreign to local to native!

What does all this have to do with the book, you ask? Well, that. The writers do great, ignoring the above. And i mean it, too. Excellent detail and character development. A slow burn intensity towards the climax. Good stuff.

[Andrzej · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 My first 'spy novel' I enjoyed. Good plot, characters who didn't seem too artificial. Nothing amazing, but much more engaging than anything on spies I have read before. This indeed is quite weird, as I enjoy spy movies and did like detective books as a teenager. This one though is the first after a couple of tries (with classics like john le Carré) which made me pretty pessimistic about them. This one though, maybe due to world building or character construction more similar to scifi or suspense, made me quite engaged in the storyline and fairly attached to the characters. I also had it as an audiobook and a couple of longer road trips.

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite science-fiction writers, but he’s also written two political novels with his uncle, J. Frederick George, under the pen name Stephen Bury. Both have since been re-issued under their real names. This one is an interesting take on just where Saddam Hussein got his bio-weapons ahead of the first Iraq war. All fictional, of course, but so convincing I actually went and did some Googling to see if any of it was based on truth. (It isn’t – as far as we know.)

[Manu Castellanos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué decir de este maravilloso autor... todo lo que escribe es oro literario.
Una novela bien llevada con personajes muy creíbles y reales. Entrelaza la acción de forma fluida y hace que uno no se canse de leer... lo típico, no te cansas y lees más.
Las historias son inteligentes y aún resultando algo típicas, es capaz de hacer que sean interesantes y te resulten únicas. Un tecno-triller que no pasa de moda pues esta novela está escrita a finales del siglo XX.
Una novela de ciencia ficción que suena a real y no es hard en su contenido.

Vamos... lo recomiendo sí o sí y casi todos sus títulos.

[Florin Pitea · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent techno-thriller. The two writers did much better when they published Interface.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big Neal Stephenson fan, especially his Baroque Cycle (see Quicksilver). This tale does not disappoint. In typical Stephensonian form we have multiple points of view, each distinct and interesting. My favorite was Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks who is our erstwhile hero, and saves us on the homefront from a nasty plot hatched during the First Gulf War. There is good humor in the telling of the tale, with many details of college town life told with great love and affection. Clyde is a man of a time looking for a place to call his own, with his equally indomitable wife away in an Army mobile hospital unit. Once again, there is excellent drawing of all the characters, even the ones that don't necessarily need to be that well drawn.

Another good one from the team of Neal and his Uncle.

[Carmelo Medina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mira que me gusta Stephenson. Es uno de mis escritores favoritos pero no se si el tema es demasiado por y para americanos que se me escapan cosas. Si, el tema del politiqueo interno a todos los niveles de la administración local y nacional es interesante, pero no me acaba de convencer. Tiene varios puntos muy interesantes que se ven que están muy bien documentados y el final es bastante ameno, pero la novela se queda en un 2,5.

[Fred Rayworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s a good thing I picked up a used copy of The Cobweb for free from a writer’s group raffle because I would’ve felt ripped off if I’d somehow actually bought it.

It was an excruciatingly long and slow literary character study where almost nothing happens for three quarters of the book. When it finally gets somewhat active toward the end, I was still so relieved it finally ended, I almost wanted to scream with delight.

I had no issue with the dated material, with the book taking place during the first Iraqi war. Desert Storm and all that. It was that the book just blathered on and on and on, page after page with what seemed like no point at all. At a snail’s pace, things finally came together at the very end, but the actual story could’ve been told in fifty pages, at best. The rest was semi-humorous blathering.

The good features was solid third-person limited, past-tense with no noticeable head-hopping. That was the one redeeming feature that kept me from throwing the book down in frustration.

The other thing that gave a bit of redemption to this almost waste of time was that something finally DID happen in the end. However, it was hardly worth the week it took to suffer through the rest of the character study, and it certainly didn’t live up to the back cover blurb.

Nope, this one was a dud and a big waste of time. For literary fans only.

[Avbac23 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This turned out to be a surprisingly fun read!

I have long been a fan of Stephenson's, though I thought one of his other action/thrillers (REAMDE) was only mediocre. So when I realized he'd written this one that I'd never heard about, I was prepared to be only medium-entertained here too. But it turned out to be great!

I don't know how much to credit George with keeping the plot on track, or building to a satisfying ending (which is admittedly unusual in a Stephenson novel), but the result is excellent. As with previous books, I enjoyed being treated with Stephenson's turns of phrase and relatable similies, and getting into details about certain technologies in depth. But in addition to his style, I was surprised that the build-up to the thrills were believable, and the skills of the protagonist were plausibly justified. In the genre-requisite fight scene at the climax, the action doesn't seem gratuitous and overwrought, as is so common in this era of superhero movie fads; rather, the fighting is consistent with previous character development and serves to advance the plot.

The result is that I'm now interested to read the other collaboration betwen Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George, Interface. I hope it's as satisfying as this one proved to be!

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with humor and biting irony, "Cobweb" is the best book on the US government that I've read. It's also the best book on the Midwest, and the fact that it manages to be both at the same time is further proof (as if this were necessary) that Neal Stephenson is a treasure.

Fortunately for me, Stephenson spends most of his time in the Science-Fiction / Fantasy genre, but this book, written in his early days, is a classic thriller in the mode of John Le Carré and Robert Ludlum. Since that's not where I typically hang out, I'm not quite sure how I came across the book... but I'm glad I did. The setup is plausible, the stakes impressively high, the principle characters beautifully limned, and the observations on how the US executive branch works and mid-West life ring absolutely true and at times are painfully funny.

There are a couple of flaws (a few too many useful coincidences, and the ending is a little rushed and implausible), hence four stars, but I'd recommend it over most books I've rated with five.

[kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another page-turner from the guy you expect not to produce one. Takes place during the 90s Middle East crisis. Involves biological weapons and a large helping of unlikely protagonists. Very fun read. And paranoid. Elicits appreciation for anything at all getting done in DC. (wow, did i write this? years ago, now. still stands.)

[Gendou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different sort of book by one of my favorite authors.
Little in the way of science fiction, but some interesting biology stuff.
I just enjoy Stephenson's characters so much, it made the book fun.
Also, the plot had good mystery in it, which Stephenson also does well!
Not sure what to make of the politics in the book.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

В очередной раз — нет ничего лучше туго скроенного политико-шпионски-конспирологического триллера о людях, которые занимаются своим делом и при этом знают, что делают (это не тавтология, а не сильно очевидное по нынешним временам уточнение). Мило и весело, картинки из жизни закулисья американской администрации очень знакомы.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neal Stephenson teamed up with his uncle, J. Frederick George (nee George Frederic Jewsbury), to write The Cobweb (1996), their second novel together. Stephenson is an outstanding master of novels involving new technologies and far-reaching prognostications—his 1999 Cryptonomicon is a wildly entertaining novel that introduced me to the notion of crypto-currencies in the context of WWII in the Pacific. His more sedate but chilling Fall; or Dodge in Hell (2019) probed the implications of brain-to-machine transplants to nullify death.

The Cobweb's Stephenson is not the modern Stephenson. Cobweb is an entertaining and often funny experience but it's a run-of-the-mill geopolitical thriller; a fun book, but not an unusually interesting book. The title comes from the phrase "cobwebbing" used in intelligence circles; someone has been "cobwebbed" if they are so entangled in an organization's unwritten rules that they become powerless to escape their fate, which is becoming a scapegoat.

The time is 1990—the year the USSR collapsed, the Iraq-Iran war ended, and Saddam Hussein was setting his eye on Kuwait. The U. S. has long supported Hussein but the relationship is wearing thin. Among the signs of wear is information that a $300 million dollar food aid program to Iraq may have been diverted to financing the development of biochemical weapons.

A meeting in Paris has been arranged by NSA Director (and Harvard professor) James Gabor Millikan to discuss Hussein's possible financial shenanigans). Millikin sees himself as uniquely able to divine the calculus underlying the motivations of geopolitical players. He wanted to

. . . achieve in foreign relations the elegant perfection that mathematicians achieved in calculating the digits of pi. He did not deal in terms of individual human beings; he did not, in the long run, believe that human beings had anything more to do with the carrying out of state policy than had ants and their little universes in affecting human life.

Shades of Henry Kissinger!

At the end of the meeting, Millikan refers the question to Betsy Vandeventer, a CIA analyst, for further study, not realizing that Betsy will become a thorn in his side. His selection raises Betsy's stature and she is on her way up after her much-detested boss implodes at the Paris meeting.

Betsy is an Idahoan whose brother, Kevin, is seeking a Ph.D. in veterinary pathology at the University of Idaho. Kevin is a struggling Ph.D. student who has submitted a rough draft of a dissertation to his advisor. His advisor runs a research mill that pulls in lots of federal cash and when he sees that Kevin might assist the cash flow he pulls Kevin's thesis out of the stack of unread theses and instantly declares it acceptable in meeting the requirements of the university's Ph.D. Kevin's familiarity with animal diseases will play a significant role in the story.

Betsy's rise from a CIA analyst into the elite atmosphere of organizational intrigue was the inadvertent effect of Millikan's revenge for her going "beyond her task" at the Paris meeting, that is, offering an unsolicited opinion. The assignment is his way of putting her in the spotlight as the scapegoat if things go wrong. In her new role, she learns that the real goals of a government agency are not serving the public welfare. The real goals are undermining opponents and ripping power from them, expanding your budget and power at the expense of others, ensuring the longevity of your department while shortening the lifetime of others, and—most important of all—ensuring that in every activity there is a scapegoat who will be thrown under the bus if it goes awry.

At the other end of the power spectrum, we meet Clyde Baker, a deputy sheriff in Forks County, Iowa. Clyde is an ex-high school wrestler now married to Desiree Dhout, whom he calls Big Boss. Desiree's six brothers were notable high school wrestlers and Clyde, a fellow student, fell in love instantly when Desiree turned on a male classmate whose left hand fondly clutched her buttock, pinning him to the floor and subjecting him to eternal shame.

Now Clyde is running against his current boss for county sheriff. Clyde's clever slogan is "Vote Barker," and he pledges to knock on every door in the county to meet the folks and get the votes. True, the bumper stickers he bought for voter's cars weren't water-resistant and fell off quickly, but his optimism remains high.

At the same time, Clyde is also actively investigating the murder of a Jordanian student at the local university. The student, Marwan Habibi, was working in an area connected with biological weapons. He was last seen being carried out of his laboratory building by Jordanian fellow students. Marwan's body was found in a stolen rowboat with its head bashed in by an oar.

These seemingly disparate people and organizations will come together to bring the low-level players (Clyde Barker and Kevin Kevin and Betsy Vandeventer) into the realm of the high-level players (NSA Director Millikin and the CIA. The murder of Marwan Obi and the shenanigans of Saddam Hussein will be wrapped together, and all will be well—for the moment! Meanwhile, we'll be chuckling at the book's wry view of the human condition.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

well written, moves along. lots of mystery, but just enough tenuous connections between seemingly unrelated things to make you suspicious and wanting to know what exactly is going on. Once it starts to become clear, it seems not possible and possible at the same time. So plausible it's scary.

[Jeff Flotta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great look at what could be (or is) happening with foreign relations right here on our own soil. How could one man, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks, get so tangled in local, national, and foreign authorities and politics? I dare you not to get wrapped up in... The Cobweb.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book based on biological warfare and American government; Funny, hard to put down.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow start but very exciting at the end. Dated because it's about the first Gulf war. Not really an alternate history, but a possible behind-the-scenes intrigue.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tangled web
This book (published in 1996) was the second of two novels Neal Stephenson wrote in collaboration with his uncle, historian George Jewsbury. I'd read the first one, Interface , some time ago, but had neglected to pick this up until now. I'm very glad I did.

The story's a fast-moving thriller about biochemical terrorism in the build-up to the first Gulf War in 1990, involving mysterious goings-on in a midwestern university town and at CIA headquarters in Washington. There's a wide cast of characters (including some historically contemporary figures such as George H.W. Bush and Tariq Aziz) which are scattered across a variety of locations, but the story is driven forward so deftly and with such confidence that you never lose track of either what's going on or the connection between events and people. I think of this skill as a particular hallmark of Stephenson's writing - perhaps best illustrated by his recent Reamde - a hefty masterpiece which, although sprawling and complicated, is still interesting and gripping.

Readers familiar with his work will recognize other themes of the story, including a fascination with technology and an unsentimental view of the importance of family. There are some nice touches in the descriptions as well. Look, for example, at this [p138]:

"Ebenezer was a plain-dealing and -speaking sort. In his mind all transactions more complex than, say, buying a plate of scrambled eggs at the Hy-Vee breakfast counter, and all relationships more complex than a lifelong, purely monogamous marriage between two virgins, belonged to a vast but vaguely defined category called 'shenanigans'".

I greatly enjoyed this book - partly as a fascinating page-turner, and partly as a window back into a specific point in history which I hadn't thought about for a long time, in spite of having lived through it. Recommended.

Originally reviewed 17 September 2015

[Costin Manda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cobweb is not a sci-fi story, just a fiction thriller. It happens in modern day America, where a small town cop slowly unravels a plot of international proportions and implications. He has to foil it with no help from (or rather against) the corrupted systems of university academia and government security and diplomatic agencies.

Actually, this is the main subject of the book, if I can say so: Throat cutting internal politics inside the CIA, the rule that CIA operations cannot take place inside the borders of the USA, and they ways to bend that rule, university scholarship stewards that live off foreign student exchanges (real or not) and bogus grants, etc. It was a bleak picture, the one painted of the CIA employees who cannot exceed their assigned duty, even if they have plenty of reason to, else face career stop or even dismissal.

In the end, of course, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks saves the day, but I can't help noticing that I knew this would happen from the very start. The real information is in the path to the end result and that is what I've appreciated in this book. The reader is taken away to discover the filthy world Stephenson and George expose.

It starts a little slow. It also provides plenty of information for would be terrorists :) So I recommend it to everyone, even if it is not a sci-fi book, it's a solid well made story.

[Robyn Blaber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading the rest of my Neal Stephenson collection and keep hoping that there will be more science fiction in it. The Cobweb is not science fiction, but more historical fantasy, centred on events leading up to the first gulf war.

It turns out to be a quintessential tale of the farm boy from Iowa or Idaho or one of those who saves the whole country with his spark of American "can do". The American "can't do" is underscored by the countless American agencies such as the FBI and CIA who hamstring or "cobweb" one another in an attempt to corner the bad guys. Of course it all comes down to our deputy county sheriff... seriously... to save the day.

Ostensibly, this whole book comes off as a justification for the creation of the Department of Homeland Securities... or any kind of CIA that can operate within US borders (I thought they had the NSA for that). Oh well, whatever, so long as Washington creates new budgets and jobs for people who want to chase the Muslim Peril in small town USA, I guess this book would be required reading for the faithful.

Apart from the preaching, on its own it's an OK book. There is much suspense and intrigue and it's interesting to see how the Washington spy agencies eventually come to the same conclusions as the deputy county sheriff. I'll mark it as an OK read, but wouldn't recommend it over any other Stephenson book.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cobweb is a refreshing twist on a familiar trope: someone who has no business engaging in espionage finds themselves overmatched while fighting mysterious bad guys. Here, we follow a dedicated science grad student, a CIA analyst fighting the DC bureaucracy, and, primarily, an Iowa Deputy Sheriff. The second half of the book is almost entirely about the deputy, who is smart, athletic, and handy in a fight. In short, he is NOT Roger Thornhill or a housewife or grandma who finds themselves accidentally in the action.

The book starts slowly, while the last half is excellent.

The book includes the very best description of bureaucracy I've read, which I intend to add to this review when I get around to it.

Interestingly, the authors include what many people believe was going on at Wuhan, the development of a plague targeting people based on their genetic markers, i.e., ethnicity.

Very good narrator.

4.25 stars