Infected: A Novel

Scott Sigler

Apr 2008 · The Infected Book 1 · Sold by Crown

About this ebook

A terrifying thriller that will crawl beneath your skin . . . and leave fresh blood on every page.

“Fraught with tension . . . Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Hot Zone.”—Rocky Mountain News

Across America a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families. 

Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common—they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey—a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey—awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. 

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

Ratings and reviews

It is difficult for me to "sit down with a cup of tea and read a book, sitting in front of the fire...." due to hectic life and work so audiobooks are for me. I listened to the unabridged version read by the author himself, which was lackluster due to his insistence on imitating a woman's voice, but the content is makes for great reading; gory, compelling, suspenseful, plot-twisting and heavy on the testosterone. I enjoyed it immensely especially since he and the story's foundation is in Ann Arbor/Detroit area with accurate details that won't bore you.

WOW!! First of all, I enjoyed this book so much when I should have been sleeping... I just couldn't put it down! I had to read it one sitting! I haven't felt that rush of adrenaline to keep reading in a long time (I would say not since Frank Schatzing's The Swarm, but I know there have been a few others between then and now). I just love the "music" that has gotten stuck in my head, too - from Frank Sinatra to Paul McCartney! How exciting! I am just really loving this darkly disgusting thriller, despite some of its more revolting sections, it is just one of the more exciting books that I have read in a long time. And I am so excited to read the sequel! And I hear there is a third book which I am disappointed does not yet have a release date...

Reading Infected seemed so real, being set in Michigan (I live in Ohio). I could actually plot out the beginning of the book on a map. Scary Perry Dawsey is the greatest character I've read. Once you've started you can't put it down. I found myself saying "I'll stop after this chapter" when starting a new chapter, then again with the next chapter and again with the next. Overall this book is great. The first of three!

About the author

Scott Sigler is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including Contagious, Ancestor, Nocturnal, and Pandemic. He lives in San Diego.