Germ

Robert Liparulo gives us a genuinely terrifying thrill ride here, using a menace born in the racial hatred of the Third Reich, nurtured by a personal vendetta, and brought to life by 21st-century technology. And it’s all the more frightening for being far too plausible.

The stakes here are nothing less than the control of a designer virus, keyed to the DNA of specific victims, about to be set loose on the public. Liparulo gets the maximum mileage out of it as his characters fight to stay alive long enough to unravel the mystery and eliminate the danger while being hunted by an implacable, almost superhuman assassin.

Four stars for this page-turner.

When I came across Germ by Robert Liparulo, I was initially excited to see it featured the Ebola virus used in germ warfare. That premise alone made me anxious to read it. Once the concept that the virus was modified, encoded, to attack the specific DNA of individuals was introduced in the "Facts" section at the beginning of the novel, I was hooked. In Germ, special agent Julia Matheson must figure out what is happening and why she and Dr. Allen Parker are being targeted by assassins before the deadly weaponized infection is released to ten thousand people.

While it would appear that the premise would be enough to keep readers interested in the plot, the short chapters and switching to the view point of multiple characters made this show more novel feel choppy. Additionally, the number of gun fights, chase scenes, hand-to-hand combat, narrow escapes, etc., could have been edited down. This would have tightened up the novel and helped the pacing. As difficult as it seems, I was becoming bored with the sheer overwhelming number of fight scenes.

There is no "who done it" mystery to solve, so the main suspense is in asking what will happen next. The action scenes are the star of the novel, with the Ebola virus taking a back seat to it. Ebola is horrific enough that I will admit to being a bit disappointed that it didn't take a more prominent place in the action throughout the novel.

This is Christian fiction, but I don't think that that really matters at all except for the lack of colorful language. There really are not pages of theological discussions. One character is a minister and there were a few Biblical quotes, but that's about it. All in all, it was okay for a thriller (but not so much for a virus novel).
Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/ show less

Top notch thriller. I bought it expecting a medical thriller a la Robin Cook, but got something so much better. Liparulo knows how to keep you going. All plot elements in place. A devout Christian, he tells the story without even mild profanity, yet all characters work that way. The slight Christian message is not heavy handed and does not detract from the story. A mad scientist has figured out how to splice DNA with the Ebola Virus, so that it can target specific individuals. The unlikely team of a CDC/FBI agent, a renouned surgeon, and the doctor's brother, a pastor, work to figure out and defeat the scientist, while being pursued by an amazingly wicked assasin.

Review by Jeremy Taylor

Robert Liparulo burst onto the Christian fiction scene in 2005 with his debut novel, Comes a Horseman, which was highly regarded enough by both readers and fellow writers that he was subsequently invited to submit a short story to 2006’s Thriller, a collection of similarly themed short stories edited by genre giant James Patterson. With his first book, Liparulo established himself as a thriller writer worth of sitting on the same table of contents as authors like Lee Child, James Rollins, and David Morrell. Now he’s back with number two.

For readers who enjoyed Horseman, Germ does not disappoint. Liparulo, though only having just completed his second book, is clearly no stranger to the art of storytelling. The show more plot is fast-paced and suspenseful, the characters are believable and likeable, the villains are diabolical and realistically sinister, and the ending pulls readers all the way through the lengthy (486-page) story at what feels like breakneck speed. In all of these elements, Liparulo has surpassed Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti, two of WestBow Press’s other best-sellers, both of whom have turned in lackluster books in recent years, including the dismal collaboration House in 2006.

Yet for a book ostensibly written for a largely Christian market, written by a Christian author, and published by a Christian publishing house, Germ has a noticeable lack of Christian content. The explicit Christian content in the book, if it can even be called explicitly Christian, is summed up in one character’s statement to another: “Good lu— . . . To hell with luck. God be with you.” Liparulo has certainly proven his ability to write cross-over thrillers. But the question of whether he can write Christian thrillers still remains open.

Germ starts off fast, with a patient bleeding out from an Ebola-like disease in chapter 1 and an FBI agent involved in a high-speed chase in chapter 2. The action accelerates as Agent Julia Matheson tries to beat the clock to rescue her partner from an unknown danger and then rescue the world from an evident biological threat. Along the way she teams up with a brilliant and conceited surgeon and an embittered pastor. Together, the three unlikely heroes must stop a madman from destroying civilization as we know it. And the clock is ticking from page 1.

Germ lists a number of “facts” on the flyleaf (reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code) to whet readers’ appetites for what follows. Unlike Dan Brown’s best-seller, though, Liparulo limits his facts to verifiable data and has crafted an action-packed, conspiracy-free story to back them up. The book is superbly entertaining in nearly all respects.

It is disappointing, however, that WestBow didn’t encourage it’s up-and-coming author to incorporate more of a Christian message into his story. The thriller genre is the genre of the moment in the secular literary world, and it’s only natural that the Christian market should try to capitalize on authors’ cross-over appeal. But Germ has so much mainstream appeal that it flirts with being not a cross-over book but a purely secular one.

(http://www.cerebralexchange.com/books/reviews.asp?book=270&host=1) show less

I gave this book a 5 because it did exactly what it was supposed to do--provide a thriller that keeps the heart stopping action going from beginning to end. It entertains and is the ultimate escapist read. It is not literature but that is not the point. This book is as good as watching a movie. It's language conveys a picture of every thought and movement of it's actors. Highly recommended.

"If you breathe, it will find you".

Robert Liparulo's sophomore novel "Germ" grabs your attention from Chapter One. The non-stop action begins by a statement of facts regarding Dr. Robert Guthrie, a microbiologist, and his development of the Guthrie Test, a medical test performed on newborn infants to detect an inborn error of amino acid metabolism.

Deduction is made of how such technology, in association with gene splicing and in the wrong hands, could selectively target and attack a particular DNA gene in the general population rending a person dead in a matter of days.

Details of the end result of such a virus on humans are graphically described. This is not a novel for the weak at heart. It is intense in its plot, in its characters, show more and almost non-stop action scenes.

That being said and for those who enjoy an action packed Thriller, this novel of DNA-specific biochemical warfare will take your breathe and not release it until you finish the last page.

Good and evil are presented with equal clarity.

FBI Agents Goodwin Donelley and Julia Matheson, the protagonist, are depicted genuinely, with a sincere, deep friendship.

Dr. Allen Parker and his brother Stephen Parker (almost Doctor turned Pastor) are unsuspecting participants but add much to the story.

Karl Litt, the antagonist, the son of a Nazi researcher, is diabolical and utterly without remorse.

With unexpected twists and turns and several complex story lines, true to the genre, this work kept me in 'suspense' wondering how all elements would merge to a conclusion. I was not disappointed as the story line ended.

This novel will surprise you as you become acquainted with characters only to learn they do not survive. Not all suspense novels can make such a claim. Unanticipated ends to major characters adds greatly to the development of those characters that remain as well as the plot.

Germ is a Christian Fiction novel. It is entertainment and does not resort to profanity or vulgarity. Great novels rarely do. It takes much more creativity to produce a work that captures the reader with the plot, the characters, and interaction alone.

I recommend this book highly and look forward to more of Robert Liparulo's work. show less

Robert Liparulo's Germ had many positive reviews so I downloaded it for my Nook for free. The no fee should have been a warning to me that the book was not good. I made it to page 148 of the 495 page book and had to stop. The quality of the writing is poor and I would have to agree with one reviewer that it was probably written by a second grader. The plot idea was good but it was not well executed. The plot is supposed to be about a strain of the Ebola virus having the ability to target specific people through their DNA. However, everything I read up to page 148 were chase scenes. The characters were flat and uninteresting. Germ is on my top 5 list of lousy books.