This is one of those books that seems like it’s a non-fiction which makes it more scary than almost any horror book. I was truly terrified at reading this. The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars is because I felt like he started rambling at the end. The first part of the book is so fast paced and then it started to feel like it was all going in slow motion. I would love to read more books by him tho. If you haven’t read it already, I would also highly recommend the Hot Zone written by him. ( )

Monsters are real. And the most terrifying monsters are us.

Richard Preston, whose non-fiction book about Ebola, [The Hot Zone], scared the bejeebers out of pretty well everyone who read it, has come back with a fictional but all-too-plausible novel about a manmade plague about to be unleashed.

The substance of the novel is pretty much by-the-numbers suspense that could slide right onto the shelf alongside any of Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme thrillers. We have a brutal death (the first of several), the shadowy madman intent on unleashing terror, and the intrepid team of investigators using a lot of gee-whiz gadgets and forensic skills to find and stop him. There's even a slight undercurrent of incipient romance here, which Preston wisely keeps under wraps until all has been said and done. Altogether, and all by themselves, these elements make for a dandy thriller.

But what makes The Cobra Event so truly frightening is Preston's insight into the very real and utterly horrifying world of "black biology" -- that intersection of genetic engineering and biotechnology where shadowy entities, terrorist groups, and rogue governments toil to create the ultimate bioweaponry.

The Cobra virus is imaginary. The technology that created it, the methodology to disperse it, and the will to use it, is not. And that is what may keep Preston's readers awake long after they've set this novel aside. ( )

It begins when a New York City teenager has a seizure in class and dies shortly after. CDC scientist Alice Austen is dispatched to observe the autopsy and try to determine if this is an infectious agent. She quickly determines that this is not an accident but an act of terrorism. A deranged, disgraced biotechnician is intent on releasing the deadly Cobra virus in New York, to kill as many “useless humans” as possible.

This is a great thriller, that kept me enthralled and turning pages as quickly as I could. I’d read Preston’s nonfiction bestsellers: The Hot Zone and The Demon In the Freezer, so I knew he had the research background to make this a very plausible scenario. Reading it in the era of COVID19 just makes it that much more frightening, and interesting. I loved the details on how the teams of scientists, public health officials and FBI agents worked to decipher the clues. ( )

By the time I finished this book, and remember it first came out in 1997, I am far more concerned with bioterrorism than anything North Korea is currently pulling with their missiles, or any other country's for that matter. ( )

The technical information was fascinating, but it overshadowed the story. The characters were poorly developed and way too inhibited. I think Preston is a fine nonfiction writer, but not a fiction writer. ( )