Pandemic: A Novel (Dr. Noah Haldane Book 1), by Daniel Kalla (Tom Doherty Associates in 2005/Forge Books in 2007 [paperback], 407/420 pages, $7.99 [now available in Kindle only])
Pandemic, The Book!
Would you believe a book titled Pandemic written way back in 2005? And is it ever a page-turner! But don’t read it at night if you are alone: It’s that good! Why was it not a best-seller? Why has it not been made into a movie?
Yes! There really is a book called Pandemic! Actually, more than one but I am going to concentrate on the pandemic novel by Canadian ER physician-author Daniel Kalla, published in 2005.
Imagine
Imagine, if you can, the sudden appearance of a deadly respiratory infection of unknown origin that kills quickly and indiscriminately (within four days and with an incubation period of three to five days). Imagine it first showing up in China, then Europe, then North America. A pandemic. This new disease is more deadly than SARS – sound familiar?
The ‘Reality’
I must reiterate that this Pandemic is a novel. However, it is more than just a novel about a disease, “ARCS”, Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome. WHO plays a large part in this pandemic in that several of the protagonists are doctors or scientists at WHO; others work at DHS or the CIA. Some are women, including the head of a bioterrorism section. And, of course, there is a bit of romance (but not too much) and even a quarantine. And a race against time – not only against such a tiny enemy but also against a human one.
A frightening disease, killing 25% of those infected, “ARCS” may very likely be spread deliberately (a much worse scenario than the reality of the 2019 coronavirus). However, the incubation period is shorter for “ARCS” (3-5 days) than for the current COVID-19 (1-24 days, usually accepted as 14 days).
Is it conceivable that some bad guys could get their hands on a deadly virus and pass it on to their enemies? Can you imagine us trying figure out the cause and just who the bad guys are?
The Canadian author gets a lot right about Washington, DC, and even places the climax in a town called Jessup, Maryland (the next town over to my town). There is murder and mayhem and a classy US President who is definitely a good guy, a leader to look up to.
If you want a terse, scientifically correct, medical thriller, Pandemic is it! Then, like me, you will want to read more books by Daniel Kalla and even more books about emerging diseases, epidemiologists, and epidemics like small pox and polio.
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Caveat: This book was purchased for review.
For fun (?) watch the medical mystery movie, “Outbreak*,” about an airborne virus epidemic with Morgan Freedman, Rene Russo, Donald Sutherland, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Patrick Dempsey. (* “The 79 Best Pandemic Movies to Binge in Quarantine”)
Websites that merely list good books without telling you why they are recommended are not so helpful after all. I haven’t read the following but am familiar with some of the authors and have scrutinized their contents so I can give you a little information to help you decide which of these books to start with. So, here we go.
Other books on my “To-Read” shelf, in no particular order (let know if you would like to borrow any of these):
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus,
Carriers by Patrick Lynch (Berkeley Books/Random House, 1995, 355 pages, $12.40 hard cover on Amazon) A bio-thriller. A sudden outbreak as deadly as Ebola but a hundred times more contagious.
Ebola: A Documentary Novel of the First Explosion in Zaire by a Doctor who was there, by William Close, MD (Ballantine Books, 1995, 400 pages) It came, it killed, it disappeared. 1976. By the surgeon father of actress Glenn Close who was also related to Marjorie Merriweather Post. Very readable. And scary. The first major outbreak of viral hemorrhagic fever in Central Africa. Zaire was crippled for many years afterward, its infrastructure demolished, leaving the country rife to corruption which ultimately contributed to further medical crises. Another book by the same name was written by Garrett, see below - The Coming Plague.
The Secret Life of Germs: What they are, whey we need them, and how we can protect ourselves against them, by Philip Tierno, PhD (Atria, 2003, 301 pages, $19.99). This book is high on my next-to-read list: it is written for the average person and contains helpful information to use around the house as well as explaining all about germs. The author has even been on the Oprah Winfrey Show so you know he is not only knowledgeable but also interesting.
Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World, by CJ Peters (Doubleday, 1997, 323 pages, $15.95). I am familiar with both authors and have read one book by one of them – it was riveting. Virus Hunter is a biography of a virologist and the diseases he studied and the worldwide outbreaks he traveled to. It is high on my to-read list.
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance, by Laurie Garrett (Penguin Books, 1995, 750 pages, $22.50) She also wrote a book on Ebola: Eboa, The Story of an Outbreak. The author was interviewed in the recent Frontline documentary Coronavirus Pandemic (21 Apr 2020).
Also by Daniel Kalla:
Blood Lies, about an ER doctor with a twin in Seattle, 2008
Cold Storage, about mad cow disease, BSE, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, 2019
The Last High, about the opiod crisis, 2020
Of Flesh and Blood, about cancer and MS and the Pacific Northwest, 2010
Rage Therapy, the underworld of psychiatry in Seattle, 2007
Resistance, about a super-bug that is resistant to all antibiotics, 2010
We All Fall Down, about a current Black Death, 2019
And another series by Daniel Kalla:
Rising Sun, Falling Shadow: A Novel, (WW2 and the Shanghai Ghetto), 2012
The Far Side of the Sky: A Novel of Love and Survival in War-Torn Shanghai (Chinese, Japanese, Jewish history in 1938, and a doctor, of course), 2012
Nightfall Over Shanghai, (1944-45 Shanghai), 2016
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