THE LAST PLAGUE

An SF thriller focuses on a world where clones thrive and a new vaccine promises possible immortality.

Dr. Avicenna “Avit” Arceneaux is a young pathologist working on the Panacea vaccine, which will be distributed worldwide. As the rollout is about to start, Arceneaux and his assistant, Mathieu Boden, perform an autopsy on a corpse with a strange condition—the person died by rotting from the inside out. Surgeon General Story Patout, who is in charge of the vaccine project, begins an experiment on Arceneaux and hospital administrator Sister Lazare, both clones, to see if he can mutate them into a higher form. Arceneaux participates against his will, and as the experiment starts to affect him, pandemonium breaks loose. The Panacea vaccine turns out to contain a plague that kills millions around the globe. This was Patout’s plan all along. Arceneaux was “harvested” as a child, meaning his organs were taken to save his brother, Roby, leaving the pathologist scarred and seeing the world through prosthetic eyes. The experiment heals Arceneaux, giving him human eyes and long hair, which makes him look feminine. He uses this disguise to stay in the hospital, posing as the sister of a doctor named Elise Casaubon, and avoid Patout, who wants to harvest him again for antibodies. This sets up a battle pitting Arceneaux, Lazare, and Elise against Patout, Roby, and Elise’s sleazy husband, Richard, to end the surgeon general’s programs for the good of humankind. The novel has the bones of a captivating SF adventure, offering rich details and a remarkable protagonist. But the story feels convoluted, and there are a lot of helpful coincidences, such as Arceneaux’s looking feminine after the experiment takes hold. There is no thorough explanation for that, though it makes much of the following action possible. Unfortunately, the villains are cartoonish. Patout at one point explains that he was actually trying to help humanity by killing a large percentage of the population, reducing the strain on global resources. But there is no sense of what would drive him to such a monstrous deed. In addition, awkward prose hinders the narrative, as when Crouch writes of Arceneaux: “Anxiety broke over him like a red flag surf in the Gulf.” And instead of telling readers Roby has a trademark sneer, the author writes: “He sneered and it was a trademark.”

An intriguing medical tale hampered by uneven prose.