Rating: 
Summary: Totally enthralling
Review: Tasi-ko, a small North Korean town, is under siege by what the visiting doctor called the "Spanish Lady". Soon afterward, a plane destroys everyone in the town except Kang, who happened to be outside the area seeking help. Kang escapes to South Korea and explains to the authorities what happened to his town. Eighty years ago, the "Spanish Lady" killed thirty million people and now it is back. Washington Post reporter Frank Daley is looking forward to joining the scientific expedition heading to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen for what could be a major part of the story of the year. The team will try to recover strains of the "Spanish Lady" from some deceased minors, allegedly preserved by the frozen tundra. Frank misses the trip north due to a storm, but catches up with the ship and crew on their return. However, everyone seems frightened and no one will talk about what they found on the island. The obstinate Frank keeps digging in hope of finding a deep throat, but instead he learns that Armageddon may be just around the corner. THE FIRST HORSEMAN is a first rate biomedical thriller that will become one of the top novels of the year. With our shrinking world, the story line could have come off of yesterday's headlines. The novel highlights the return of a pandemic outbreak that shook the planet eight decades ago and could come back even deadlier than before. With this book and THE GENESIS CODE, John Case makes a case that he might just be the leader of modern day biomedical thrillers. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: A little of this, a little of that
Review: This book has weird cultists, North Korean bad guys, a biological weapon capable of killing billions and not the brightest main character ever to grace the pages of fiction. Spanish Lady refers to the 1918 influenza outbreak that killed thousand of people around the world in a matter of months. All of a sudden, it looks like the North koreans may have figured out a way to bring Spanish Lady back from past, and the good guys need to get on top of this problem before the bad guys perfect their weapon. The story shifts dramatically to Frank Daly, a Washington Post reporter, who stumbles across the story and gets entangled with a far out cult. The cult's founder, Luc Solange gets most of his money from the North Koreans (why the Nkors would pick Luc and company to deliver their weapon system is never explained). Eventually, Frank Daly ends up in a life or death confrontation with Luc and company armed with nothing more than the First Amendment. Perhaps, this art initating life, but I would have arrived there with nothing less than a squad of Force Recon Marines and a couple of tanks. Without giving away too much, journalist Frank saves the world from destruction at the hands of the Nkors and looney cultists. If you forget that Frank is kind of dumb, the story holds together pretty well and demonstrates just how vulnerable we are to BW or CW attack using our infrastructure. Worth a quick read.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Genesis Code - but worthy.
Review: It is not nearly as revolutionary in its thinking as The Genesis Code, but it is still well worthy of your time. Good writer who makes the story interesting. You can do far worse than this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Semi entertaining, but extrememly predictable.
Review: The First Horseman did manage to hold my interest throughout the book, but left me with an unsatisfied feeling upon reading the last page. The description of the novel that is written on the back would lead you to believe that you are going to read one of the most amazing thrillers in ages. Instead, it's pages are filled with a plot that seems overdone, and done better by other authors. There are no twists and turns, no big surprises. Everthing that happens in the book seems to come from a mile away, and while reading it, I knew what was going to happen next most of the time. I kept waiting for the big twist, and the thrilling climax. It never came. The bottom line with this book is, if you are a huge fan of the author, or the genre (and you like when a writer dives into the most minute details of the science they are discussing), then by all means, pick up The First Horseman. It does have an excellent premise. It is just terribly weak on the delivery. Look elsewhere if you want surprising plot twists and interesting characters.
Rating: 
Summary: kept my interest-BUT MAIN CHARACTER WAS TOO NAIVE!!!!
Review: I must say that Jim Hougan's Kingdom Come was one of the finest thrillers I have read in years, and I read alot! about 3 books a week. First Horseman kept my interest, was nicely paced and well written. The MAJOR flaw was the utter stupidity of Frank Daly- the main character. He seemed to be far too naive for a "veteran journalist" For example, when he sees a cult member going through his car, her explanation is , he left his lights on.
And he buys that!!!! Come on now!!! He knows he is battling a very vindictive and dangerous cult and seems utterly incapable of putting 2 and 2 together when it comes to obvious things, throughout the entire book. So much so, that the reader loses confidence in him and cannot identify, because nobody with half a brain would be so gullible. This flaw is repeated throughout the book. Also, Daly is directly responsible for the "microwaving death" of a young student, yet doesnt express any guilt, another disjointed example of a non-too believable lead character. This may seem picky, but when one reads a thriller, it becomes increasingly annoying- so much so that you want to reach into the pages and slap some sense into the so called investigative reporter.
Rating:
Summary: The leaner, the better
Review: This novel contains all the things that scare us all in real life: North Korea, Cult, Epidemics, a potential war, etc. What we now know about the situation in North Korea and SARS, for instance, adds more vivideness and reality to this story.
With all those factors, this book could have been more stimulating if the author was more focused on collaborating the main story line, instead of going here and there. I got lost in the middle of the story. It also takes several chapters initially before warming up. The 375 pages could have been trimmed down to about 300 pages with more focused writing.
Rating:
Summary: Mass Market Media dabbles in bioterrorism.
Review: I was recommended this book by a friend, and was quite disappointed by it. .... Tragically, this book fails to deliver. It starts out moving along at a fairly good clip, although the writing style is stilted and the dialogue is tinny and forced; it slows down about halfway through and never picks back up. It feels like the book was written to meet a page count, and 500 pages were used where 300 would've done the trick. The FBI is, naturally, protrayed as the bad guy, the CIA is, naturally, written off as incompetent. It's the standard DC-based thriller Stock Character set (the heroic journalist, his lovely girlfriend, the meddling and incompetent but silent and probably resourceful federal agents). And the ending with a twist, the basic, this is fiction... or ISN'T it!? ending, was kind of sickening. In general the whole novel feels like it was poorly researched and not well done. It had the potential to be a timely book (bioterror's a hot topic now), with a real-life edgy kind of thrill to it (North Korea's hot too), but in fact it just sort of fell flat. It's mass market paperback. It's worth avoiding...
Rating:
Summary: mostly harmless...
Review: the spanish lady is the name given to a superflu which ravaged among mankind around about 1920. the flu infected one billion people, about half the worlds population at that time, and killed about 50 million people. during it's emergence in those two years, it killed more people than other diseases... the name "spanish lady" was given to this flu because at the time, spain, which was not involved in the first world war, had a free press and thus reported the emergence of the disease. somehow that name just stuck. those are the facts, here goes the novel. john case puts down a fictional bioterrorism thriller, in the wake of richard prestons "cobra event" (or possibly, in the wake of richard prestons "hot zone"?). the story, in short, is about a sect that wants to free the world of the parasite of man, by releasing the spanish lady onto it. a reporter, frank daley, is researching a story about that same sickness, and during the course of the novel, he finds out about this planned pandemic. while the material for a really great thriller is there, the book itself stays mostly harmless. the first 50 pages are really good - and then the story seems to stand still for about 220 pages. we're treated with glimpses of frank daleys day-to-day life, which, because it seldom advances the story, doesn't do much for the reader. more than once i found myself wondering if anything is still going to happen... and i was disappointed that case didn't manage to keep up the pace he set during the first couple of chapters. for what it's worth, though, the book never hits rock-bottom boredom. towards the end, on about the last 80 pages, the pace does pick up again, and although the ending is not very spectacular, it's acceptable. another annoyance, aside from the 220 pages of blah, was the fact that sometimes the dialogue was just a bit too cheesy. people just don't talk that way! and while every book has its fair share of cheesy dialogue, this one goes a long way. this book wasn't captivating, but it did keep me curious. for everyone who's looking for more, i would suggest you follow the reference on the back of this book and grab a richard preston book instead. they'll not only keep you curious, but will scare the hell out of you - and deliver more depth at that.
Rating:
Summary: DARK SPANISH LADY
Review: "The First Horseman" carries on the John Case tradition of scaring the pants off of you with some really horrifying what if jitters!!! And as in previous novels, it starts off with mysterious murders and then you're off as to how in the world they have anything to do with what's going on now. Our hero this time is newspaperman Frank Daley, and he's quite the assertive journalist. The plot is so involved that to retrace it here would be redundant and superflous. As in all Case novels, he people it with some really nasty characters, and again religious sects play a big part in the whole scenario. I did have a problem with the character of Susannah. Here's this obviously ditsy young woman who has a child, casually murders people...puts poison...on the hero's steering wheel that sends him into...hallucinations, then when her religous leader tells her she isn't supposed to be having a baby, he engages her in a violent boxing match, puts a plastic bag over the baby's head, and then when it's done, tells her she did a good job, the baby is fine and she is actually thankful to him...that's stretching it..and the ending, as per previous Case books, is again anticlimactic, and over much too quickly.
But, hey, what the heck..it's one great roller coaster ride, so hop on and enjoy, and think WHAT IF????? GET THOSE FLU SHOTS!! RECOMMENDED
Rating:
Summary: Scientology Inc. In Fiction
Review: While waiting for a freight train on the Afton bridge (it's a long story), I read an excellent Fiction Suspense novel written by a New York _Times_ best selling author. The novel is about a psychotic killer "cult" called "The Temple of Light" that is bent upon eradicating surplus humans from the planet, to "restore balance" to nature. "Cult" is in quotes because the organization merely uses the cloak of "religion" to mask its activities and to use "religion" as a [tool] against criticism--- it is not actually a religion. Sounds just like [a religion], eh? ... Whenever the author used the words "church" and "religion" he put them in quotes. The "cult" had a privately owned ship, upon which a few "members" mysteriously died. The main character of the novel remarked that investigators "took their (the "cult's") word for how they died," and no actual investigation of those deaths occurred. When the parents of one of the dead started their own investigation, they were harassed, intimidated, and (as the only solution left) murdered by the "cult" to finally shut them up. This not only ended the investigation, but also kept the other parents of dead "members" from seeking their own investigations.... By the middle of the book I had noticed dozens of [a religion's] parallels. I thought that criminal enterprises which use thought reform and mind control most probably have many similarities, so I did not make too much of the parallels. Until, that is, I read the name of the department in charge of The Temple's crimes such as murder, kidnapping, extortion, intimidation, witness tampering, assault, intelligence gathering---- The book calls this department of the "Temple of Light" the Office of Special Affairs! No, really. As the book progressed, so did the author's use of real-life [religious organization's] OSA activities. In very many places, the author obviously researched [the religious group] on the Internet, as real-life OSA crimes and human rights abuses were fictionalized and added to the book. The inclusions go from the main character has his trash collected by The Temple Of Light, to having the Temple kill the dog of a human rights activist. (And then suing the human rights activist for "libel" when he complained.) The main character's computer equipment, diskettes, and printouts were also stolen by OSA. Anyone who criticized The Temple of Light's crimes was called by The Office of Special Affairs in the newspapers a "religious bigot." When some of the members of the Temple committed murder and fled to Cuba, they insisted that they fled to Cuba because the USA government was "religiously persecuting" them. Consider pages 258, 259, and 260: These three pages outline in a fictionalized form the actual [religious organization] OSA's techniques used against human rights activists in real life: harassment; "third-partying;" nuisance phone calls; going to the activist's place of employment and slandering him; framing him for child molestation; stalking; bugging his telephone; framing (and getting charged!) for a "hate crime;" signing him up for various [sexual] publications.... typical [religious organization] crimes and human rights abuses. There's even a criminal Private Investigator working for The Temple, running around assaulting and kidnapping the "enemies" of the Temple. The funny thing is, if I had not studied [the religious organization] over the past seven years, all of this would have just been "pure fiction" to me. It is rooted deeply in fact, with the title "Temple of Light" replacing "Scientology Inc."[the religious organization] it, the book is a good read. The book also mentioned John Travolta! And called various Temple franchises "Orgs."
| 
