Elliott Garber

The Chimera Sequence, by Elliott Garber is a fast-paced, well written, biological thriller that keeps the reader turning the page from the beginning to the end. I was skeptical at first because I have a background in epidemiology, have personally traveled to Virunga park hiking different peaks and visiting the gorillas on multiple occasions, and I camped out in a hotel just across the border from Goma with Medicins Sans Frontier staff. I have been exposed to the environment the author describes, and was prepared to nit pick inaccuracies in the novel. But I didn't need to. The world Garber described accurately matched my own experiences and allowed me to be drawn into the complexities, trauma, and conflict embedded in the region. Hats off to Garber for knowing what he talks about, and for being able to write about it so clearly and engagingly. I expect this book to easily make the jump to bestseller status.

My only criticism is that the believability the author creates so well the Upper Kivu region, does not maintain its strength back in the US. The scenes involving a press intern in the situation room are a stretch that feels unbelievable and unrealistic, but since the rest of the book was so well done, it was easy to overlook.

I hope Garber continues to write action adventure thrillers, he has proven deft at weaving together what is possible tomorrow, with what is real today.… (meer)

Much like James Rollins Sigma Force series The Chimera Sequence is a intense race against time to prevent a horrific pandemic. Unlike James Rollins series Elliot Garber has many sources working on finding, diagnosing and obliterating the source of the infection.

Cole McBride, DVM is active Army but is on a leave to work in Rwanda on his PhD in infectious disease. While going on a journey to check on the Silverback gorillas in a national park taken over by rebels, he discovers one whole family of gorillas dead. They are all covered in postules. There is evidence that they knew they were dying because of the way their nests were made. One starving baby is living but needs immediate help to survive.

In the following days Cole is alarmed at the fast pace in which the virus progresses. Meanwhile a physician at a nearby forest hospital has a human who is coming down with the same symptoms. Someone close to Cole dies with the same symptoms the gorillas exhibited. What has him stumped is the rapid progression of a disease that according to his tests should have a span of a couple weeks. The CDC becomes involved. Is it a fluke of nature? Is it just a random mutation of an already known virus? Is it man made?

All of these questions need to be answered as soon as possible. Back in the states the government takes a mild interest but there are other pressing issues closer to home that need attention----till all hell breaks loose and the virus is an imminent threat.

The Chimera Sequence immediately draws the reader into the race against time to prevent a pandemic of epic proportions. Readers that like James Rollins, Clive Cussler or Dan Brown will love this first book of Elliot Garber's.

This ebook was provided to me free from the author for review purposes. For more about Elliott Garber check out his blog, The Uncommon Veterinarian at http://www.elliottgarber.com/… (meer)

ABR's original The Chimera Sequence audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Welcome to the next great bio-thriller author, Elliot Garber. The Chimera Sequence is definitely up there with others in this hard hitting genre like those written by Crichton (Andromeda Strain) and Richard Preston (The Hot Zone).

The book follows different characters as it weaves its intricate and incredible story with the main character being Cole McBride. Cole is a U.S. Special Forces veterinarian. It follows him into the jungles of central Africa. While there, he and his team uncover some dead and dying Silverback gorillas, and they’re not sure what they have, but they want to find out more. They have little to no time to do any field-testing on the gorillas because war has been raging within these jungles for years. A close personal and romantic friend of Cole’s comes down with what appears to be the same mysterious illness that is affecting the gorillas. This sends Cole back into the jungles in order to meet up with a group of Special Ops to find the underlying cause of this mysterious illness. There is some other incredibly interesting bits to the story, but to mention them would take away from the mystery and the story arc that Garber has penned so vividly.

The narration, done by Neil Shah was excellent (and I will be looking for other works narrated by him in the future). The audio quality is some of the best work I’ve heard and you can tell that the author, narrator and publisher put a good deal of work into the quality of this audiobook. The narration was done in more of a dramatization instead of a straight narration with Shah using different voices and accents to narrate the different characters. This adds a nice touch to this already great book. Listening to this on audiobook did not in any way take away from the drama and nail-biting mystery that Garber wrote—in fact I believe that it may have added to it.

Overall, the book was excellent, if you are a fan of bio-terror and bio-thrillers – I would pick this book up. Many books will market themselves as a bio-thriller or include the biohazard symbol to draw you in, but once you are into the book, you find that, there isn’t much biological aspects. This book is not like that, Garber, being a veterinarian himself has put a lot of hard science into the book to make it both incredibly well researched and terrifyingly believable. The virus that is contained within the pages of this book (or the cables of the audiobook) is terrifying and I hope that we won’t live in a world like the world that Garber painted so well in his first novel.

Audiobook provided for review by the author.… (meer)