Buzz

Our friend David Lebedoff has written a number of books, one or two of which we have plugged here. But now, just in time for the Summer beach market, he has published his first thriller, called Buzz. Buzz is somewhat in the tradition of Jaws, only the deadly predator is a whole lot smaller. Most of us are used to swatting them without much thought:

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That’s right: mosquitos. The plot of Buzz involves a terrorist group that figures out how to weaponize mosquitos by getting them to drink blood that is combined with a deadly toxin. When they next find an animal from which to suck blood, human or otherwise, the toxin is injected into the victim, who dies a horrible death within a matter of seconds. So consider: if you have 20,000 toxic mosquitos, and let them go under propitious circumstances, you can have 20,000 casualties in a matter of minutes. Not only that, the entire population of the United States will be thrown into a state of terror, as mosquitos are everywhere, and our economy will grind to a halt since no one dares venture outside.

That’s the plan, anyway. The heroine of Buzz is Dr. Mary Campion, who specializes in bugs, particularly mosquitos. She works with a team from the FBI to try to unravel and foil the terrorists’ plans. Mary becomes the public face of the counter-terror/counter-mosquito effort, to the point that the terrorists decide that she must…

Well, for the rest you have to read the book. David says that a lot of research went into it, and it probably will tell you as much about mosquitos as you want to know. The terror plot as described seems, actually, rather plausible. And there is a Minnesota angle for those who live in the Upper Midwest. Where would a terrorist gang go to harvest the biggest, hungriest mosquitos in the world? Sure, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. And where might secret toxins be delivered to Arab agents here in the United States without attracting notice? A very logical site would be the Mayo Clinic, which a great many rich Arabs frequent, with their vast entourages.

Happily, while the subject matter of Buzz is often macabre, David writes with a light touch that will keep you turning the pages happily, while you apply sun tan lotion, roll over on the beach towel, find a comfortable spot on the dock and, perhaps, swat a stray mosquito.

Buzz is available as of this week on Amazon. You can buy the paperback edition for $10.00 and the Kindle electronic edition for $4.99, or for free if you are a subscriber. Follow the link to buy it today!

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