ONE BY ONE

by Linda Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1977

This book makes bacteriological warfare as American as cherry pie: you can now have your personal arsenal of microbes for the millions. Paranoid Harold Ehber (who thinks of himself as Harry Truman bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki) becomes the ""Mad Poisoner"" of Manhattan simply by growing a botulism culture in his refrigerator (you know that furry stuff on canned food left open too long), drawing the dreadful glop into a hypodermic needle, and quietly squirting it around town: into a donut in a bakery, an apple in Gristede's, a liver sausage in Bloomingdale's. With less than an ounce of this culture, he could kill everyone in the States. Soon the bodies are falling, one by one. Harold is aided by short Denny, a male whore he has taken in off the streets. Denny is a moronic body-builder (he's seen Pumping Iron over twenty times), and their palship is a rip-off (a parody?) of George and Lennie's in Of Mice and Men: Denny, being botulismed by Harold, even begs, ""Tell me about the places, Harold."" Katy McCarthy, a Midwesterner working her way up on the New York Daily Sun, breaks the botulism story and becomes a celebrity as she chases down leads over the months. Deaths mount into the hundreds, but it is the chutzpah of Katy's fight against chauvinism in the harsh male world of big-city reporting (and in bodybuilding!) that just might turn the trick in making this a big, creepy seller. But please--no television version!

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION