THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP

A ho-hummer about hush-hush bio-weaponry in conspiratorial hands. Beautiful budding microbiologist Stacy Richardson, sitting for the orals that will lock up her Ph.D., gets a horrifying phone call. Her adored husband, she’s told, has taken his own life. Suicide? Not for a nanosecond can Stacy believe such a thing. Max’steadfast, positive in outlook, brilliant (head of the University of Southern California’s microbiology department)—had too much to live for, including luscious Stacy. She zips over to Fort Detrick (Maryland) from USC, on fire to get to the bottom of what she, and every experienced reader, is certain will prove a conspiracy. Max had been at Detrick, on detached service, working on a species of “killer proteins” called Prions. He’d been helping Dr. Dexter DeMille, number-one microbiologist in the field. But to do exactly what? It’s a program overseen by fanatical (diabolical also applies) Admiral James G. Zoll, who hints at basic instability and maybe a touch of substance abuse as the causes of Max’s suicide. He’s hiding something, Stacy intuits, while taking umbrage. Supported by unlikely allies (a burnt-out case of an ex-marine, a lost soul of a Hollywood producer), she launches a relentless investigation. Undercover bio-weaponry is what they’re up to at Fort Detrick, she discovers, a secret attempt to redesign Prions as a special kind of bacteriological agent: smart germs that can tell foe from friend and act accordingly. But the program is thoroughly illegal. Not that this is a matter of much concern to Admiral Zoll, whose patriotism has long since crowded into zealotry and who wants America’s germs to be unsurpassed. So there’s Stacy, willing to die to clear Max’s name, and Admiral Zoll, ready to murder to protect his program. Blood in buckets before resolution. Television veteran Cannell’s fifth subpar thriller (Riding the Snake, 1998, etc.). He did much better work when he was writing The Rockford Files. (Author tour)