Review: Toxic Prey: A Lucas and Letty Novel by John Sandford

 

The fate of the world and most of its inhabitants is the subject of Toxic Prey: A Lucas and Letty Novel by John Sandford. Dr. Lionel Scott has a vision to save a planet besieged by global warming and human overpopulation. Kill a lot of people. Create a new pandemic far more lethal and wider ranging than Covid. Kill billions of people to stop the strain on the world and possibly reverse the coming collapse.

 

Letty Davenport is sent to England by her boss, Senator Christopher Colles. Officially, she works for the Department of Homeland Security, but the reality is that she is sort of a fixer type for Colles. She is sent to England to talk to three of Lionel Scott’s friends and find out what they know about Scott and if they know where he is.

 

There is a concern as the good doc previously worked at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and was currently working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Scott is an infectious disease specialist and has a lot of knowledge in his head. That knowledge could be dangerous if used by others.

 

Met by Alec Hawkins of MI5, Letty is shown Oxford, and A few other things. It soon becomes clear that Lionel Scott has a history of depression and a fascination with the possibilities of the Gaia hypothesis. 

 

Simplifying greatly, the theory is that the Earth is a living organism and all life on Earth live in a sort of harmony and are protected by the Earth. That balance has been destroyed by human overpopulation. If you remove billions of humans from the planet, the survivors would live in a world that would steadily improve as nature healed itself. Climate change would immediately stop and would probably reverse. Species and plants would rebound, improving the quality of life for the humans that remained. Those humans would have improved access to housing, resources, etc.

 

It becomes clear to Letty that Scott might be trying to make that event happen by way of a virus. He has the medical skills to engineer one. He probably has folks with him that believe in the same mission. She knows she needs help and starts raising the alarm.

 

Before long, Lucas Davenport, Letty, Hawkins, and many others are in New Mexico on Scott’s trail and trying to stop the end of the world before it starts.

 

A top-notch thriller that offers an all too real scenario, Toxic Prey is a mighty good read. Intense, often violent, it carries readers along at a rapid pace as Lucas, Letty, and others do everything they can to stop a group of people committed to wiping out the vast majority of the human population. Toxic Prey is not only a mighty good read, it is also a scary predicator of what could be done by one man with knowledge and resources easily bought online. 

Make sure you read Lesa's review here.   

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:    https://amzn.to/48HmDAz

My digital ARC came by way of the publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons, through NetGalley with no expectation of a review.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2024