The Great Flu Pandemic of 2009 is Coming: No One Can Stop It in New Novel -- Everything Your Government Said Would Protect You Is a Lie

London: UK (PRWeb) November 29, 2006 -- Read 'Another Place to Die' by Sam North before the next round of winter flu. It might just save your life.

The Plot: Year 2009. Two hundred thousand people die suddenly in China from a mutation of the H5N1 bird-flu virus. Before the Chinese Government can contain it, it is already literally flying around the world. It gains a firm foothold on North America's East Coast - despite widespread use of antivirals and a sophisticated 'National Strategy for Pandemic Planning'. Yet the vaccination needed to combat this new lethal strain is at least four to six months away.

Worldwide, economies are imploding. Vancouver's upcoming Winter Olympic plans are in ruins. Homeland Security have already closed the U.S. borders. Real estate everywhere is in free fall. Rumours of mass burial sites already being dug outside the city are circulating. Everyone is afraid of each other and martial law has already been imposed in some major cities in Europe and the States.

Fen 15 and her restless family have already fled to one of the many Gulf Islands off British Columbia Mainland - but after just four weeks they are going completely stir-crazy. To make matters worse, Fen hears rumours of people going from island to island burning and looting.

Arno Lakis is a successful futures analyst in Toronto, but he's read the runes, seen the secret mortality figures. He has made his choice. To stay is to die. He flies West, on one of the last flights before they close the airports. He intends to find Rachel, a woman he met just once at a conference. Rachel is his big plan. If you can't rescue the world - save the one you love. Rachel's job has already gone, and her apartment building is in quarantine, she can't live there.

Deka, the immigrant cabbie is one of the few men confident he won't get flu. He has shunned the government's antiviral TCH-5 and used Doc Borov's killer soup instead, a home made vaccine developed by a former Russian virologist and ex-cabbie, who claims it will beat the virus. Doc Borov runs a secret clinic from a Gastown art gallery.

Vancouver is still functioning, seemingly secure because everyone is vaccinated. The Premier is reluctant to close things down, aware that fifty-percent of the population could be made unemployed. The rich are leaving, their yachts disappear at night. This is a city on the verge of a nightmare, reluctant to close its eyes for fear of what may come.

There is a choice; hide away and hope to survive it, or flee to remote locations. But beware, the virus might get there before you. We discover the truth; there are no lone heroes to save mankind after all - it's every man, woman and child for themselves.

We are never more than three days away from civic breakdown and the virus quickly exposes our vulnerability. Cities die fast and all the planning in the world can't help when no one can get to work and the power shuts down.

Realistic, plausible and relentless, Sam North's "Another Place to Die" is a blueprint for anyone seeking survival tips for the coming plague.

Oregon reviewer Charlie Dickinson writes: 'North knowledgeably previews how things might break down in a worldwide flu pandemic. The fate of a handful of survivors will keep readers in suspense. Laced with gritty, gallows humor, Another Place to Die, in the end, offers hope, of a very qualified sort.'

Author
Sam North is the author of Diamonds - The Rush of '72, The Curse of the Nibelung - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, and this is his seventh novel. Sam is a former contributor to Elle Décor New York, editor of the long running Hackwriters.com - the international writer's magazine and he runs the Masters in Creative Writing Programme at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He divides his time between Vancouver, Canada and the UK.

Another Place to Die - Lulu Press - ISBN: 978-1-84753-899-4 ¬ - $18 Retail
Available from all good on-line booksellers.

Contact:
Sam North
University of Portsmouth, UK

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