The Moses Virus-Jack Hyland

The Moses Virus Jack Hyland Taylor Trade, Jan 7 2014, $24.95 www.rowman.com ISBN: 9781589799080 The American Academy of Rome sponsors an excavation led by Bryn Mawr College archeology professor Dr. Robert “Doc” Brown into an underground passageway at the Roman Forum that he believes leads to Nero’s Palace missing for 2000 years. Attending the dig besides Doc and his students are NYU Forensics Archeology Professor Dr. Tom Stewart and International Herald Tribune Jim Ruchet. With care and diligence, the staff lowers Doc and his assistant Eric Bowen into the hole. The pair reaches a crumbling wall which they manage to open only communications turn silent. A tug on the rope from above proves they remain tied but neither Doc or Eric pull back to show they are okay. Greg Bater goes down into the hole to find their corpses horribly twisted and moss covering them. The autopsy states a long buried virus caused the deaths, but the official position is that a cave-in killed Doc and Eric while burying the passageway. No one believes this as journalists and shadier people stalk anyone at the dig. Fearing the virus will end up in unscrupulous hands and distrusting a private firm too interested in the virus; nor the Vatican, the Italian government and other interested nations to do the right thing to prevent a pandemic, Stewart seeks the virus to destroy it. The Moses Virus is an exciting cautionary thriller that grips the audience once Eric enters the hole and never slows down until the climatic confrontation. Although grad student Alexandra Cellini is a strong brave female, her romantic tie to the beleaguered hero seems more of a subgenre requirement. Still readers will relish this fast-paced taut tale. Harriet Klausner