FICTION

SPILL by Les Standiford (Atlantic Monthly Press: $19.95; 320 pp.). Things that go bump in the night always make for scary reading, but how about a silent “bump”--a plague from which there is no escape or cure? Welcome to Les Standiford’s “Spill,” a suspense story based on the “what if?” proposition of a tank truck carrying a lethal cargo of a particularly virulent form of hemorrhagic fever overturning in a creek inside Yellowstone Park. The contaminated water is lethal to humans and animals alike. The chemical company, under a secret pact with the CIA, sends hired killers to terminate everyone in the park who might be infected and spread the plague nationally. Despite some far-out stretching of the imagination and a plot line or two lost in the shuffle (who engineered the truck’s wreck?), the suspense is tangible and the specter of nationwide plague awesome.