Pg. 69: Daniel Kalla's "Cold Plague"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Daniel Kalla's Cold Plague.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Pristine water — hidden for millions of years, untouched by pollution, and possessing natural healing powers — is found miles under Antarctic ice. The scientists who make this astonishing discovery stand to win worldwide acclaim and earn billions. While people around the world line up for a taste of the therapeutic water, a cluster of new cases of mad cow disease explodes in a rural French province. Dr. Noah Haldane and his World Health Organization team are urgently summoned.

Fresh from a brush with a pandemic flu, Noah recognizes the deadliness of a prion — the enigmatic microscopic protein responsible for mad cow disease — that kills with the speed and ferocity of a virus. Despite intense international pressure to declare the outbreak a random occurrence, Noah suspects that factors other than nature have ignited the prion’s spread among animals and people in France. Facing a spate of disappearances and unexplained deaths, Noah uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Beverly Hills, and from the North to the South Pole. He soon realizes that the scientific find of the century — a lake the size of Lake Superior buried three miles under Antarctica — might hold the key to a microscopic Jurassic Park.

With a billion-dollar industry hanging on his silence, Noah has to stay alive long enough to sound the alarm.

Among the praise for Dan Kalla's novels:

“Fast-paced and smartly written . . . Kalla has quickly matured into a force to be reckoned with.... Blood Lies springs several fresh surprises on the reader (including one whopping great shocker).”
—Booklist

“Daniel Kalla expertly weaves real science and medicine into a fast-paced, nightmarish thriller—a thriller all the more frightening because it could really happen.”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author, on Pandemic

“An absorbing, compulsive thriller, the sort of book you could stay up too late reading.”
—The Vancouver Sun on Pandemic

“Fans of Presumed Innocent will find welcome echoes of that modern classic in Blood Lies. The twists are well done, and Kalla has a gift rare in the thriller field for creating sympathetic characters.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A taut psychological thriller that will pull you into a world of sexual deviancy, murder, and mind games. A very good read.”
—Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author, on Rage Therapy

“Kalla strikes again with another perfect page-turner.”
—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author, on Blood Lies

“A damn fine read.”
—John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author, on Blood Lies

Read an excerpt from Cold Plague, and learn more about the novel and author at Dan Kalla's website.

Daniel Kalla is the international bestselling author of Pandemic, Resistance, Rage Therapy, and Blood Lies. He works as an emergency-room physician in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Read January Magazine's "Author Snapshot: Daniel Kalla."

The Page 99 Test: Blood Lies.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Plague.

--Marshal Zeringue