To be honest, I had heard of this novel some time ago and put off reading it. I regret that now. I’m not a huge Sci-fi reader, which is what this book is categorized, and the guy with an assault rifle wearing a gas mask on the cover made me think it would be a novel about an evil plague that people have to wander around shooting the infected with little emotional connection to the characters. Boy was I wrong.

There is a plague, but not like I imagined. There is shooting, again not as I imagined.

The fact that Mr. VanDyke has served in combat zones around the world shows in the details of the characters actions, and emotions. The story is written in such a way I never doubted the actions a character would take in clearing a house with hostiles inside were what the same ones our soldiers in Afghanistan are using. The thoughts going through a characters head, which the author does an excellent job of putting us in the characters head, would be those going through our shoulders minds. Yet the story does bog down while procedures are explained.

The plague is not the ones in other novels. High five to Mr. VanDyke for coming up with the concept for this pestilence. I have no doubt if such a virus were developed, the chaos that ensues in the novel would be as likely.

If there was a negative to the novel, it ends with the outcome of the characters I came to know and love unsure. It does ends in a satisfying way, but here again the author made me want to read the following four novels in the series.