Pierre Ouellette
The Third Pandemic
A Novel
A nonhuman life form run amok energizes Ouellette’s compulsively readable second thriller.
—Publisher’s Weekly
This so close-to-realty thriller packs quite a punch and… spends a lot of time detailing and explaining the circumstances of how a global bio-disaster comes about.
—Amazon review
What’s a bit creepy is that this book is from the mid-90’s and doesn’t seem dated.
—Amazon review
A plague novel, chockablock with microbiological weirdness and humans who behave at times with about as much conscience as microbes…
—Kirkus Reviews
The first pandemic was the Black Death of the 1340s, which killed at least half of Europe’s population. The second pandemic was the Spanish Flu of 1918-20, which took fifty million lives. The Third Pandemic is the new eBook edition of Pierre Ouellette’s sci-fi thriller that traces the trajectory of a virulent new bacterial mutation that slowly spreads panic and havoc around the globe.
The deadly pathogen originates in West Africa, a unique variation of the Chlamydia Psittaci bacterium, a close cousin of bird flu. As it happens, researchers in a California biotech lab have already synthesized a similar pathogen, called Agent 57a, which now makes it possible to develop a vaccine. As the real disease spreads inexorably throughout a long incubation period, a ruthless biotech executive plans to reap a fortune by waiting for millions to die before making any vaccine available.
Learning of her boss’s treachery, research team leader Dr. Elaine Wilkes absconds with the only copy of the data and teams up with Seattle police lieutenant Philip Paris in a grueling quest to make the research public and fight the pandemic – as the world around them begins to sicken and collapse into anarchy.
First published in 1996, The Third Pandemic was Pierre Ouellette’s second sci-fi thriller after The Deus Machine. Eerily prescient of a pandemic a quarter century later, the novel takes on a terrifying new relevance. But it’s only a story…
Pierre Ouellette lives in the Portland Metro Area and is the author of six novels that span a diversity of subjects and settings. He served for two decades as the creative partner in an advertising and public relations agency focused on science and technology. Prior to that he was a professional guitarist and played in numerous pop bands and jazz ensembles, including Paul Revere and the Raiders, Jim Pepper and David Friesen.
Also by Pierre Ouellette
The Deus Machine, The Forever Man, Bakersfield: A Crime Novel
Writing as Pierre Davis
A Breed Apart, Origin Unknown
Author Preface to the eBook Edition
The Third Pandemic was first published in 1996 as a work of speculative fiction on the threat posed by a major pandemic. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, many aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic align with those described in the book.
Regardless of the infectious agent involved, two principal factors contribute to the severity and longevity of any disease outbreak in the modern world. The first is a long incubation period with no symptoms detected, which significantly expands opportunities to pass the germ onto others. The second is the mode of transmission, which determines how easy it is to spread the infection through airborne droplets, contaminated surfaces, etc.
Both COVID-19 and “Agent 57a” in my book present a worst-case scenario for each of these factors. They have very long incubation periods and can be transmitted relatively easily. When combined with modern air travel, they can circle the globe and proliferate with astonishing speed.