The Cobra event - Richard Preston

In 1969, in the Pacific, the US embarked on mass trials of some of the most lethal biological weaponry ever invented; genetically engineered viruses that kill in 3 days. One particle of virus is all it takes. The mortality rate is 100%. 1 kilo of agent could kill the world. The results were so frightening the research was stopped. But just like the viruses it produces technology spreads and sometimes the wrong people get it...
In 1998, in New York, a 17 year old High school student wakes up with a cold. 4 hours later she is writhing on the floor of her
classroom racked by convulsions, trying to chew off her own fingers. Minutes later she is dead. Across the city the body of a
homeless man is bought into hospital; his spine bent in an impossible 'c', he has bitten off his own lips, tongue and fingers. How can the 2 incidents be realted? As more people die it's a question that investigator Alice Austen from the centre of disease
control needs an answer to fast. No one has heard of this disease before, it's caused by a virus that is just too efficient to be natural. It would take a scientific genius to design such a killer. A genius bordering on madness. A madness born of the belief
that there are just too many people in the world. If Alice fails in hr hunt for the killer there will be no one left to kill....