We All Fall Down

Starred review from June 13, 2011
Harvey shows how a thriller focused on bioterrorism should be done in his outstanding fourth novel featuring Chicago PI Michael Kelly (after The Third Rail). At a high-level meeting that includes the city's mayor and Homeland Security agents, two scientists reveal that a biowarning device in a subway tunnel has detected the possible presence of a pathogen. Kelly provides security for the biologists when they visit the site of what everyone hopes is a false positive. Skeptical of the explanation for why the Feds or Chicago PD aren't being used for the job, Kelly soon learns that some form of superbug is felling Chicagoans left and right. As the city is quarantined, Kelly risks his life to track down the truth, a search that brings him into conflict with the Mafia and a ruthless narcotics gang. The complexity of the plot never overwhelms the narrative flow in this utterly persuasive view of a present-day apocalyptic nightmare.

July 1, 2011
Chicago PI Michael Kelly is both maverick and insider, a free-swinger who has worked with and against the city's powerbrokers. In his latest case, those unlikely credentials make him the perfect man for a job no sane person would want: providing security for scientists charged with containing the release of a biological weapon in the city's subway system. As the body count grows, and Chicago's West Side becomes a fenced-in death camp, Kelly moves between the mayor and his minions, Homeland Security thugs, various gang leaders, and top Mob henchmen, trying to nail who's responsible for the attack. Through three novels (most recently, The Third Rail, 2010), Harvey has displayed a remarkable grasp of Chicago's underpinnings, at street level and in greed-stained government offices. Here, though, it's anything but business as usual. With the otherworldly horror of black biology casting a lethal blanket over the city, Kelly must play off one self-interested antagonist against another to neutralize an invisible threat. A gripping crime novel with a frightening message about very plausible biological warfare.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)