Bioterrorism Fiction

July is National Bioterrorism/Disaster Education Awareness Month.  These books with bioterrorism themes probably won't educate you, but they will entertain you!

Beijing Red by Alex Ryan - When a team of charity workers in rural China suddenly succumbs to a mysterious illness, Nick Foley, an ex-Navy SEAL with a war-torn past, discovers the makings of a global catastrophe. Still reeling from a mission gone wrong, Nick is reluctant to get back in the game, but with lives hanging in the balance, he must fight to uncover the truth and overcome his own demons. Along for the ride is Dr. Chen Dazhong, a brilliant, beautiful, and tough scientist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Together, they unveil the outbreak's unsettling ties to the Chinese government--and a conspiracy greater than either could have ever imagined. As the trail of death leads from village to village, Chen and Foley must race against time and geopolitics to thwart an enemy too small to see.  Book 1 of 2 in the Nick Foley series

The Deep Zone by James Tabor - When she was unjustly fired from a clandestine government laboratory, microbiologist Hallie Leland swore she would never look back. But she can't ignore an urgent summons from the White House to reenter the realm of cutting-edge science and dangerous secrets.
 "Potentially the worst threat since Pearl Harbor" is how the president describes a mysterious epidemic killing American soldiers  in Afghanistan--and now poised for outbreak in the States and beyond. Millions will die unless Hallie and a hastily mobilized team can recover the ultrarare organism needed to create a new antibiotic. The good news is that Hallie knows more about the organism than anyone else on the planet. The bad news is that it can be found only at the bottom of Earth's deepest cave.
 Hallie's team is capable--especially the mysterious Wil Bowman, who knows as much about high-tech weaponry as he does about microbiology--but the challenge appears insurmountable. Before even reaching the supercave, they must traverse a forbidding Mexican jungle populated by warring cartels, Federales, and murderous locals. Only then can they confront the cave's flooded tunnels, lakes of acid, bottomless chasms, and mind-warping blackness. But the deadliest enemies are hiding in plain sight: a powerful traitor high in the Washington ranks and a cunning assassin deep underground, determined to turn Hallie's mission into a journey of no return.  Book 1 of 2 in the Hallie Leland series

Every Last Breath by Juno Rushdan - Maddox Kinkade is an expert at managing the impossible. Tasked with neutralizing a lethal bioweapon, she has everything under control...until she collides with the former love of her life, back from the dead. Recruiting Cole to save millions may be harder than resisting the attraction still burning between them, but Maddox will do whatever it takes--and the clock is ticking. When Maddox crashes back into Cole Matthews' life nine years after she left him for dead, he wants nothing more than to turn her away. But the threat of pandemic looms, and soon the former lovers find themselves working side-by-side to stop a world-class assassin with a secret that could destroy everything... Book 1 of 2 in the Final Hour series

A Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer - On the night of the State of the Union address, President James Allaire expects to give the speech of his career. But no one anticipates the terrifying turn of events that forces him to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building. A terrorist group calling itself "Genesis" has unleashed WRX3883, a deadly, highly contagious virus, into the building. No one fully knows the deadly effect of the germ except for the team responsible for its development--a team headed byAllaire, himself. The only one who might be able to help is virologist Griffin Rhodes, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security federal prison for alleged terrorist acts, including the attempted theft of WRX3883 from the lab where he worked. Rhodes has no idea why he has been arrested, but when Allaire offers to free him in exchange for his help combating the virus, he reluctantly agrees to do what he can to support the government that has imprisoned him without apparent cause.Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol--every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the "Designated Survivor" for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments...and time is running out. 

National Security by Marc Cameron - When Terrorism Goes Viral, One Man Goes Ballistic.
They can strike anytime, anywhere. A public landmark. A suburban shopping mall. And now, the human body itself. Three Middle Eastern terrorists have been injected with a biological weapon, human time bombs unleashed on American soil. They are prepared to die. To spread their disease. To annihilate millions. If America hopes to fight this enemy from within, we need a new kind of weapon. Meet Special Agent Jericho Quinn. Air Force veteran. Champion boxer. Trained assassin. Hand-picked for a new global task force that, officially, does not exist, Quinn answers only to the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. President himself.
His methods are as simple, and as brutal, as his codename.
The Hammer.   Book 1 of 8 in the Jericho Quinn series

Pulse by Jeremy Robinson - Imagine a world where soldiers regenerate and continue fighting without pause, and where suicide bombers live to strike again. This is the dream of Richard Ridley, founder of Manifold Genetics, and he has discovered the key to eternal life: an ancient artifact buried beneath a Greek inscribed stone in the Peruvian desert.
When Manifold steals the artifact and abducts archaeologist Dr. George Pierce, the United States Special Forces Delta operative, Jack Sigler, callsign King, and his 'Chess Team' - Queen, Knight, Rook, Bishop and their handler, Deep Blue - give chase. They must save Pierce and stop Manifold before they change the face of genetics - and human history - forever.  Book 1 of 8 in the Chess Team Adventures

Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris - Unraveling’s heroine, sixteen-year-old Janelle Tenner, is used to having a lot of responsibility. She balances working as a lifeguard in San Diego with an intense academic schedule. Janelle’s mother is bipolar, and her dad is a workaholic FBI agent, which means Janelle also has to look out for her younger brother, Jared.
And that was before she died…and is brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a mysterious, alluring loner from her high school. When she discovers a strange clock that seems to be counting down to the earth’s destruction, Janelle learns she has twenty-four days to figure out how to stop the clock and save the planet.  Book 1 of 3 in the Unraveling series

White Plague by James Abel - In the remote, frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, the high-powered and technically advanced submarine USS Montana is in peril. Adrift and in flames, the boat--and the entire crew--could be lost. The only team close enough to get to them in time is led by Marine doctor and bio-terror expert Joe Rush. With only thirty-six hours before the surviving crew perish, Joe and his team must race to rescue the Montana and ensure that the boat doesn't fall into enemy hands. Because a fast-approaching foreign submarine is already en route, and tensions may explode. But that's the least of their troubles, for the surviving sailors are not alone on the submarine. Something is trapped with them. Something deadly lethal. Something that plagued mankind long ago, when it devastated the entire world. And the crew of the Montana has unknowingly set it free. Now, Joe and his team must not only find a way to save the Montana and her crew, but stop a lethal horror of apocalyptic consequence from being unleashed on all humanity.  Book 1 of 4 in the Joe Rush series

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - Anderson Lake is AgriGen's Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories.
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly-acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. 

Wired by Douglas Richards - Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania?
David Desh left the special forces after his team was brutally butchered in Iran. Now he has been reactivated for one last mission: find Kira Miller, the enigmatic genius behind a bioterror plot that threatens millions. But when Desh learns that the bioterror plot is just the tip of the iceberg, he is thrust into a byzantine maze of deception and intrigue, and he becomes a key player in a deadly game he can't begin to understand. A game that is certain to have a dramatic impact on the future course of human history. . . Book 1 of 2 in the Wired series