Whiteout: Ken Follett’s Christmas Thriller of a Stolen Virus and a Snowbound House
Like no other author in the genre, Ken Follett reinvents the thriller with each new novel, but nothing compares with the drama of Whiteout (2004). A missing flask of a deadly virus. A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Toni Gallo, head of security at a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has a problem, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come.
Author: Ken Follett (born 1949, Cardiff)
Title: Whiteout (2004)
Format: English paperback (Pan Macmillan), 496 pages
Scope: Contemporary thriller set over a snowbound Scottish Christmas
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/1509865446 (ASIN 1509865446)
Christmas at Oxenford Medical
Oxenford Medical, a Scottish pharmaceutical company researching vaccines against the most dangerous viruses, is getting ready for the Christmas holidays under a snowstorm. The company has the most advanced security systems, so nobody expects any serious incident. Its owner, Stanley Oxenford, heads home to spend the night with his children. The tensions between them are bound to explode, but they will soon be forgotten: without knowing it, they are all about to go through hell.
A House Under Siege
That very night a highly dangerous virus is stolen. The thieves, however, are trapped by the storm, and in their erratic flight they end up in the worst possible place. Everyone has something to gain or lose from the drug developed to fight the virus. As the storm worsens, emotional sparks fly, jealousy, distrust and rivalry among them; desperate secrets are revealed; hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge.
Toni Gallo
Follett’s heroine is one of his most likeable characters. Toni Gallo is a former police officer who left the force after a clash with colleagues and now runs security at Oxenford Medical. She is competent, stubborn and quietly in love with her widowed boss, Stanley Oxenford, while also trying to cope with an elderly mother who is beginning to lose her grip. When the virus goes missing, she has to deal at once with the theft, the media, the police and her own feelings.
A Family Under Pressure
Most of the action takes place at Steep Hill, Stanley’s isolated house, where his grown-up children have gathered for Christmas. The family is the source of the danger: Stanley’s son Kit, a charming gambler deep in debt to a gangster, has agreed to help a gang break into the laboratory. As the snow cuts the house off from the world, the robbers, the family and Toni end up trapped together, and loyalties are tested in every room.
Fiction Grounded in Fact
The virus in the novel, which Follett calls Madoba-2, is fictional, but the setting is realistic. Laboratories that work with the most dangerous pathogens operate at the highest level of biological containment, with airlocks, protective suits and layers of security, and Follett clearly researched them. The novel’s scenario, the theft of a deadly agent from such a lab, was written in the years after the anthrax letters of 2001, when biological security was much in the news.
Follett’s Contemporary Thrillers
Most readers know Follett for The Pillars of the Earth and his historical sagas, but he began as a writer of thrillers, from Eye of the Needle (1978) to Jackdaws (2001). Whiteout is one of his few set in the present day, along with the much later Never (2021).
The Reviewer’s Verdict
The original review praised the constant tension, and that is the book’s strength: a closed setting, a ticking clock and a cast of characters each with something to hide.
Why Read It
The whole story unfolds over little more than a day, and Follett keeps the tension at the limit from start to finish. It is lighter than his historical epics, but perfect for a long flight or a winter weekend.
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