But life in Ascensión and elsewhere is constantly threatened by the eruption of viruses from the globe's churning, overburdened ecosphere. Institutions such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control function as a super-immune system to keep the planet functioning. Our protagonist, Henry David Stark, is one of the best experts in the field of virus control. He'd like to retire to his grandfather's farm in Wisconsin—which is where we first see him—but the world keeps calling him back to the front lines.

And now the most hideous plague imaginable is loose in Ascensión. A mutated dengue fever is killing hundreds by the day. The Holy Renaissance overcomes its pride and appeals to Stark, and he responds by agreeing to be smuggled secretly into the country. After a fracas at the Texas border, he's put in charge of a scary cyborg woman named Rosangelica, who proves to be much more influential than any mere bodyguard. Recruited also to the fight is an old colleague of Stark's, Dr. Isabel Khushub. They begin to investigate the outbreak, forced to play deadly political games all the while. What they soon discover is that the new virus has been artificially engineered. And the man who created it—once their trusted colleague—is still loose in Ascensión, a living pool of plague.

This madman seems fixated on a woman named Sor Domenica, a famous mystic who soon becomes known as the Patron Saint of Plagues. If Stark and company ever hope to nab the culprit behind the plague, they'll need Domenica's help. Too bad she's allied with the rebels who want to bring the Holy Renaissance down by any means possible.

An all-too-possible thriller

This is Barth Anderson's debut novel, and it's a stunner. I'm reminded of Richard Morgan's first book, not only because of Anderson's similar assured tone and style and ideational audacity, but also for his desire to get down in the guts of his future and really probe the micro-workings of his extrapolations. This is a book of high verisimilitude and exacting precision.

Anderson has taken the monitory example of John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up (1972), a Cassandra mode too long left moldering, and combined it with a typical bio-thriller such as Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain (1969) to produce a hybrid that is both scientifically and science-fictionally robust and still propulsively suspenseful. The whole action takes place over a mere two weeks, during which time the reader is ever aware of the shortening countdown to destruction and the accumulating body count.

In the character of Stark, Anderson has created a genuinely flawed and likable chap, mild-mannered but capable of spurts of heroism when necessary. Domenica, onstage less, also manages to achieve substance as a prophet. The villain and other supporting players are believable to a lesser but sufficient degree.

Anderson is not above the occasional gross-out or splatter effect to make his mark. Consider this description of plague victims: "[They] died ... with buboes hanging like clumps of poisonous mushrooms in their armpits." Eeyeuw! But generally his tone is restrained and humanist, that of an empathetic observer of mankind's folly.

Lastly, Anderson's utilization of Latin-American culture is masterful. Like Ian McDonald with Hindu culture in his River of Gods (2004), Anderson conjures up an exotic setting for his tale that broadens our too-often narrow view of which nations will drive the future of this suffering planet.