It’s the sixties, the height of the cold-war space race. A group of scientists warn the government that the quarantining procedures followed for spacecraft returning from space is woefully inadequate and that a facility is needed to handle any extra-terrestrial threats, specifically, micro-organisms.
The government actually takes notice and builds a special facility to handle such threats, and identifies a team which would operate the facility.
Two years later, a military satellite returns from low-earth orbit, and crashes near a small desolate village in Arizona. Shortly after the crash, the entire village is littered with bodies of the residents. The team is roped in, and sequestered in the special facility to understand and control this virulent threat which could end humanity as we know it.
The story plays out like a biological horror story; the subject matter is well researched and the fast-paced narrative furthers eerie and entirely plausible threat. The build up is near excellent, but the story is let down by a damp squib of an ending.
On first read, the ending seems rather anti-climactic, but from a scientific standpoint, it actually seems plausible. Micro-organisms depend on the host they infect for its own sustenance and reproduction. If it rapidly kills that host body, it is not doing itself any favours. An excellent read and a wonderful early work of great author of scientific thrillers.