Review: The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

The Strain is the first book in the Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan and a Harper Fiction.

Book Blurb:

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months - the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.

The Strain is a very tense read. :)

Doctor Ephraim Goodweather wants nothing more than to spend the weekend with his son Zack. He has arranged with work to be 'off call'. But he can't ignore his cell phone - which keeps ringing - or the local news, which shows an airplane dead on the runway.

Something is happening at JFK Airport - and as the head of the rapid response team for biological threats - 'off call' or not - Dr. Goodweather has to act.

What he finds is beyond explanation. And when things go from bad to worse - Dr. Goodweather must believe the unbelievable.

Abraham Setrakian is a Holocaust survivor - and he has seen this plague before - during his time in a death camp during World War II. Abraham has waited - and prepared - knowing this day was coming.

Now Abraham, Eph, his co-worker Nora and Fet, an NYC exterminator - are the only beings that stand in the way of total devastation.

The Strain is a very engrossing read - 585 pages of 'what is going to happen next'. I loved it.

The vampires are the bad guys in this book - no sparkly vegetarians here. :) I can't wait to find out what happens next in The Fall - release date 10-1-10.

I give The Strain 5 out of 5 stars.

M