REVIEW for The Deep Zone

A huge thank you, as always, goes out to the wonderful people at Random House Canada for sending me a copy of this book.

Publisher link:  http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345530615

TITLE:                The Deep Zone

AUTHOR:          James M. Tabor

GENRE:             Thriller


RATING:                                         

I love reading debut authors and I really love it when they happen to be writing thrillers.

Certainly The Deep Zone falls under that category.  I loved this novel, but I think what made it all that much more enjoyable (and scary!) is that the scenario is all too plausible.

A plague is breaking out in Afghanistan and this plague makes no distinction when it comes to killing – which means army personnel is affected.   The soldiers who are infected are shipped back to the US, where the real level of contamination becomes a serious, serious threat.  It turns out that this plague is man made and can be contained through a cure (which only they have) that is going to make a few select people very rich – until they discover that their cure does not work.

All the while a few heroic doctors, including Dr. Hallie Leland, are working on trying to find the ‘real’ cure and it turns out that the magical potion might very well be found in in caves in Mexico – except that its not quite that easy.  Thankfully, Dr. Leland gets all the help she needs in the form of A Special Ops operator (you just knew that the military was going to send their best!).

Basically, this book had me sitting up straight and frantically reading from page to page completely engrossed in the storyline.  The writing is good enough that it actually made me imagine the entire scenario, playing right out in front of me.  Tabor does a wonderful job of giving us just enough detail to keep us hooked, without making the storyline tedious. 

In a thriller, it is always a crucial balance between giving us enough to spark the imagination, without giving us too much – making me feel bored and disconnected and this, I believe, was the force of this book.

I liked the main characters, although the male helping the female thing was a bit predictable.  Nonetheless, it worked perfectly with the rest of the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.