Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, the dueling forensic pathologists who bounced off each other in Cook's Chromosome 6, collide and combine once again as a mad Russian cabdriver, who used to work in a Moscow bioweapons factory, comes up with a plan to punish America for not welcoming him with open arms. The cabby forms an unlikely alliance with two firemen who happen to be white supremacists; they fund his anthrax research to further their own lunatic schemes.

Cook is, as ever, best at creating scenes of perfectly realized medical terror which plug into the paranoia of the moment. But if you want deep characters and sensitive description, read Fay Weldon. --Dick Adler