Review by Nick Fuller
2/5
Disappointing in the extreme. Although the opening chapter attractively imagines a world empty of people, with references to chemical weapons and the WHO as relevant now as then, it soon peters out into mediocrity. The disappearance of a scientist (possibly with a vial of bacteria) leads Appleby on an episodic chase from a prep school to a mad Earl’s estate to an Atlantic island. The quarry turns out not to be hare, but wild goose, half-baked and tasteless.
Strictly a thriller rather than a mystery -- very well done (except for the melodramatically swift ending). Innes is very serious in his moralizing about modern society, especially the idiocy of military research and development. A top bacterial-warfare scientist goes missing, possibly with a vial of some unspecified super-virulent disease toxin; Appleby leads the chase at the request of the Prime Minister... (But one, well this one, really prefers a mystery to a thriller.)
Wyatt James
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