The Satan Bug (published in 1970) - By Alistair Maclean - A thriller about a deathly toxin stolen and used for murder

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
The Satan Bug is written under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. Alistair Maclean is said to have opted for another name to prove that his books are best sellers on account of their content rather than on his popularity. Some say that he took upon the name to counter Ian Flemming and his James Bond.
The Satan Bug deals with the perils off biological warfare. The chief detective Pierre Cavell is called upon to investigate the gruesome murders in Mordon Microbiological Research Institute. He reaches there to find two deathly toxins, a Botulinium extract and the Satan bug missing. The Satan Bug is a lab derivative of the deadly polio virus which can bring mankind to extinction, in a matter of minutes and to top it all no vaccine has been discovered for it.
Cavell finds all the scientists and the research assistants could be viewed under an umbrella of suspicion. Everybody was involved in one way or the other to force the entry in to the lab. The chief security officer who was murdered was fed a candy with the virus by an insider. Cavell chips away the layers of deceptions and alibi's and concludes that most of the scientists who had colluded with the murderer had been coerced by blackmail.



As the net closes on the villain, he kidnaps Mary, Cavell's wife forcing him to launch a search on his own. The murderer manages to kidnap the entire police party along with Cavell and kills a constable with Botulinium Toxin. But Cavell's chase does not prove futile. He unmasks the killer whose real motive was to evacuate London to undertake a massive bank robbery. So the ultimate fight aboard a helicopter, has Cavell revealing the identity of the killer. The villain thus foiled plunges to his death leaving the other phials of the toxins unopened.
If you want an edge of the seat thriller on a bleak day you need to pick up this book. MacLean does not give you a lecture on the pro's and con's of biological warfare. He just lets you in to the details of the method and its effects. Like all MacLean's hero's Cavell is a cynical, anti-establishment tough nut. He saves the very establishment which scorned him and earns his redemption at last. So pick up the Satan Bug and be sure to wash your hands to kill the germs.