The best thrillers about pandemics and medical mysteries

Why am I passionate about this?

As a researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a college professor who has taught biology and anatomy & physiology, I have a unique insight into the mysteries of the human body and how existing and emerging viruses can wreak havoc on the world’s populations. In light of the COVID pandemic that killed millions and the threat of older and increasingly virulent pathogens, I find it terrifying that viruses could be unleashed that leave us defenseless. Despite all our advances and knowledge, medical mysteries continue to intrigue us and spark our imaginations. We are drawn to them, now more than ever, hoping that the fiction we read about will not become reality.


I wrote...

Rivers of the Black Moon

By Andrew Golizsek,

Book cover of Rivers of the Black Moon

What is my book about?

Richard Zarnoff, the world’s leading AIDS researcher, is brutally murdered on the eve of making a world-shattering announcement after returning from an unannounced trip to the Congo. Speculation runs rampant. What did Zarnoff discover that made him a target? He shared what he brought back from the jungle with no one, not even his lover, Margaret Kreiser. Kreiser and the Scotland Yard Inspector assigned to Zarnoff’s murder quickly become targets—the CIA, corporate hitmen, drug cartels, and others want to keep Zarnoff’s discovery from ever reaching the public.

What Zarnoff found deep in the heart of the African jungle could affect millions of lives, but whether for good or evil, no one will ever know—unless they can stay alive long enough to piece together this shocking and deadly puzzle.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Andromeda Strain

Andrew Golizsek Why did I love this book?

A medical thriller that never gets old, Michael Crichton’s classic transported me into a world on the brink of a terrifying pandemic. The U.S. government gets involved, which leads to an urgent, top-secret response aimed at containing the crisis and preventing a global catastrophe.

I found this book fast-paced and chilling, and as a scientist myself, I think it’s at its best when Crichton, a master storyteller whose expertise in science and medicine shows throughout, describes the lab work and science behind the emergency that threatens mankind.

From beginning to end, the book is gripping, and it left me wondering if this is more possible than it seems.

By Michael Crichton,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The Andromeda Strain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life.
 
Five prominent biophysicists have warned the United States government that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, a probe satellite falls to the earth and lands in a desolate region of northeastern Arizona. Nearby, in the town of Piedmont, bodies lie heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. What could cause such shock and fear? The terror has begun, and…


Book cover of Resistant

Andrew Golizsek Why did I love this book?

I find it scary that pandemics and viral mutations are becoming more likely than ever.

In this book, a Doomsday Germ has mutated to the point that it is resistant to all known antibiotics, and as a former biomedical researcher, nothing is more frightening to me than knowing that deadly microbes unleashed on mankind are not only possible but probable.

I really like that the author, a physician who knows a thing or two about epidemics and the danger of antibiotic resistance, was adept at bringing me along for the ride, explaining what’s possible with today’s medical advances and the real dangers of crossing the line.

By Michael Palmer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Resistant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

They are the most ruthless enemy we have ever faced. And they are one millionth our size. Deep in an Atlanta research laboratory, the world's deadliest germs lie in wait. Dr Lou Welcome knows only too well the destruction they could unleash in the wrong hands and when a research scientist working on a top-secret case is kidnapped, Lou's fears become reality. Soon Lou is locked in a deadly race, from hospital wards to the top corridors of power, to stop a lethal epidemic breaking out. With his best friend's life in the balance, Lou must confront his own demons…


Book cover of Panacea

Andrew Golizsek Why did I love this book?

For me, this book was an intriguing and fast-paced medical thriller centered around a secretive and deadly society keeping alive the belief that human beings deserve a lifetime of pain and suffering since their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

I love reading about strange cults involved in medical mysteries, and this cult happens to be in possession of what it considers an ancient panacea: a cure for all of the world’s illnesses.

I found this book to be a page-turner from the start: fast-moving, intelligent, well-written, and with enough historical background, smart dialogue, and interaction between characters to make it incredibly entertaining.

By F. Paul Wilson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Panacea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two secret societies vie for control of the ultimate medical miracle―Panacea―in the latest novel by New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson, author of the Repairman Jack series.

Finalist in RT Reviewer's Choice Best Book Awards for Best Thriller

F. Paul Wilson is the winner of the Career Achievement in Thriller Fiction in the 2017 RT Reviewers' Choice Best Book Awards

Medical examiner Laura Fanning has two charred corpses and no answers. Both bear a mysterious tattoo but exhibit no known cause of death. Their only connection to one another is a string of puzzling miracle cures. Her preliminary…


Book cover of The End of October

Andrew Golizsek Why did I love this book?

From the first chapter, I could not put this book down.

When a lethal and highly transmittable virus turns its victims blue, and the Russians blame America for unleashing a deadly virus, I knew I was about to dive into a true medical thriller. I also thought the timing of this novel was disturbing, reminding me all too well of recent disease outbreaks and then taking me on a journey into a world where plagues and pandemics can easily become commonplace.

To his credit, Lawrence Wright managed to weave science and fiction into a plot that frightened as well as entertained.

By Lawrence Wright,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The End of October as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—a riveting thriller and “all-too-convincing chronicle of science, espionage, action and speculation” (The Wall Street Journal).

At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When epidemiologist Henry Parsons travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will have staggering repercussions. Halfway across the globe, the deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security scrambles to mount a response to the rapidly spreading pandemic leapfrogging around the world, which she believes may be the result of an…


Book cover of The Line Between

Andrew Golizsek Why did I love this book?

It was disturbing for me to think that the melting of Alaskan permafrost could actually unleash a disease that spreads and causes its victims to go mad. But the more I thought about it, the more realistic it seemed. Ebola, after all, was spread the same way, except by unearthing tropical soil.

A doomsday cult, which I love reading about, is involved in a sinister plot, and the world falls into chaos and is on the brink of apocalypse. To my delight, I got it all from this book: conspiracy, thrills, a sinister subplot, and a bit of romance. Tosca Lee has given me a believable and riveting novel that delivered on all levels.

By Tosca Lee,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Line Between as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this frighteningly believable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee, an extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it's the end she'd always been told was coming.

When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.

As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she's been taught to regard as…


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Book cover of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

Nev March Author Of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author History lover Scriptwriter Reader Nature lover

Nev's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

An entertaining mystery on a 1894 trans-Atlantic steamship with an varied array of suspects, and a detective who must solve his case in six days to prevent international conflict.

Retired from the British Indian army, Captain Jim is taking his wife Diana to Liverpool from New York, when their pleasant cruise turns deadly. Just hours after meeting him, a foreign diplomat is brutally murdered onboard their ship. Captain Jim must find the killer before they dock in six days, or there could be war! Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime.

Fortunately, his wife Diana knows her way around first-class accommodations and Gilded Age society. But something has been troubling her, too, something she won’t tell him. Together, using tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jim, and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.

By Nev March,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spanish Diplomat's Secret as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.

On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to…


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Interested in pandemics, survival, and medicine?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about pandemics, survival, and medicine.

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