From his triumphant debut with Snow Crash to the
stunning success of his latest novel, Quicksilver,
Neal Stephenson has quickly become the voice of a
generation. In this now-classic political thriller, he and
fellow author J. Frederick George tell a savagely witty,
chillingly topical tale set in the tense moments of the Gulf
War.
When a foreign exchange student is found
murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks
finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small
college town—all the way to the Middle East. Shady events at
the school reveal that a powerful department is using
federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what
it’s producing is a very nasty bug.
Navigating a
plot that leads from his own backyard to Washington, D.C.,
to the Gulf, where his Army Reservist wife has been called
to duty, Banks realizes he may be the only person who can
stop the wholesale slaughtering of thousands of Americans.
It’s a lesson in foreign policy he’ll never forget.