A Day in Paradise

This is a 5-minute review of “Whiteout” by Ken Follett, the whole premise is a spoiler so if you don’t want large portions of the story line revealed then stop reading now.

Firstly Ken Follett is one of my favorite authors, his stories are simple, focused and always a good read. I was hooked after reading “Pillars of the Earth” and while nothing else I’ve read from him has been quite as good, they are generally good reads.

Whiteout focuses on a high-security lab where (good) scientists are in the final stages of creating some kind of miracle cure for all disease. Obviously in this lab they also have some very nasty stuff, which some very nasty people want to use for very nasty purposes.

So the story builds up nicely, bad people use the professor’s disgruntled son (who also created the “inpenetrable” security system) to get inside. The son thinks that they are going to steal the miracle drug, not the apocalyptic virus, he needs the money to get out of debt hates his father and goes along with the scheme, and plans the heist.

According to to the plan, the drug will be stolen in such a way so that it just appears to disappear and nobody will know who took it. Obviously things go very wrong.

Kit (the son, and “mastermind”) discovers that they are stealing the virus, and that it will be used by terrorists. Through a string of events he and his fellow robbers, find themselves in the house of his father, with his family around them. Everyone knows that the 3 others are part of the gang, but nobody knows that Kit is helping them, and there comes a point where Kit has to decide whether to keep his cover and loose out on his paycheck or help the gang escape with the virus.

This is the point, where you take the gun from your pocket, shoot the three other guys in the gang. Switch the deadly virus in the perfume bottle with water make the drop, and collect ALL of the $1 million for yourself. I mean, how hard can it be to think of that… instead he decides that he would be better off betraying his family, unleashing a terrible virus, and taking the $50k that will be left over after his debts are paid and hiding in Italy.

Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t bad… just Kit’s thought process was very lame. I guess he wasn’t the brightest of the bunch to begin with, but still…