Informative. Review on State of Fear - Michael Crichton

That's right. That's the main feeling you get when reading this book. It's descriptive and very informative. I used to read it during my time working at a call center, mostly on Sunday's and early in the morning when we used to get fewer calls.

O.K, so the book centres around a young lawyer,Peter Evans, who seems to be caught up in an international conspiracy. We'll get to that later. First though, the book starts off with a series of actions by different groups of people in different countries. All involve purchases and murders and even though they seem as non-related as possible, you get the distinct feeling all these people are somehow connected or working for the same sinister group.

Switch to Peter Evans who works for a law firm. His two main clients are Drake and Morton. Drake is the head of a large environmental protection agency and Morton is a millionaire whose estate is managed by Peters firm and who also funds Drakes' agency. So the three of them get along fabulously. UNTIL- Morton begins acting strange after meeting a mysterious scientist with government intelligence connections(John Kenner). He begins to get suspicious of Drake and his agency and then mysteriously dies in a car crash. So it's left for Peter and Mortons secretary Sarah to discover what's going on. They team up with Kenner who's been monitoring an environmental terrorist organisation called ELF and try to thwart the terrorists plans which take them across the world, from Hawaii to Antarctica.

During all this time Peter realises that the theory of global warming which Drakes' agency has been trying to publicise and which most people believe for a fact is not all it's cracked up to be. He comes across a wide variety of information that points towards temperature increase resulting from urbanisation, local weather conditions and land usage around weather stations that record these statistics rather than fossil fuels being burned. And all this is somehow tied up with the terrorists plot.

The good points about the book are many. Firstly, the references. Michael Crichton has provided a gold mine of information to refer to for personal study. Secondly, the book is well written and definitely a welcome change from his last one -'PREY'. In fact it would make an excellent movie as well. I can't think of any negatives except maybe a few gaps in the storyline.

Thats all from me,

Send me your views,

Daniel