I recently had the opportunity to preview James Tabor’s novel “The Deep Zone”, a thrilling, exciting and fun read very similar to Clive Cussler at his best. The characters were well developed and credible with the plot being frightfully believable.

The story begins with a plague breaking out in Afghanistan among our Army personnel. Heroic efforts to treat this awful disease meet in abject failure, resulting in a 90% fatality rate. The soldiers can’t be treated in Afghanistan as the disease progresses and are transported to Walter Reed‘s medical facility for the Army back in the United States, where it is estimated 3 million Americans will die if the contagion isn’t contained and eradicated. The evil folks who created and released the virus have plans to make billions of dollars when they come forward with what they mistakenly believe will be the cure.

Enter Dr. Hallie Leland who is a microbiologist who worked at CDC with materials that offer the best chance of resolving this crisis. Currently, CDC has exhausted their inventory of this special material and the only way to replenish is to organize an expedition deep into a vast cave complex in Mexico. The expedition team is led by Will Bowman, a mysterious Special Forces operator extraordinaire (no spoilers here) who will get many opportunities to demonstrate his skills.

I believe this is Mr. Tabor’s first attempt at fiction and the result was excellent overall, I did think the ending could have been tighter, a few loose ends that needed resolution. I hope this is the first of many more from Mr. Tabor.