No surprise
Early in Ken Follett’s latest thriller, “Whiteout,” when we learn that someone in the attic of the isolated Scottish home of pharmaceutical magnate Stanley Oxenford can spy through a peephole on the kitchen below, we make a mental note: This will be important later. Ditto when we read that one of the children invited to the Oxenfords’ for Christmas dinner has brought along a cage of pet rats. And when we hear forecasts that a North Sea blizzard is likely to bypass Scotland, we expect otherwise. Follett, a veteran of the genre, makes every part of this story of romance and bioterrorism a working part.
The heroine, Toni Gallo, is chief of security at a laboratory where Oxenford’s firm has developed an antiviral drug (to test it, the lab also has samples of some of the deadliest viruses known). Gallo is already in trouble: A lab worker who breached security has died. Gallo is in love with the widowed Oxenford and fears the ruin of her personal hopes as well as her career. Worse is to come. Oxenford’s wastrel son, Kit, to pay his gambling debt to the mob, has betrayed the secrets of the lab’s security system to thieves who plan to steal the drug on Christmas Eve and sell it abroad.
Most of the action in “Whiteout” is compressed into two days. The thieves, who include a grotesque female sadist named Daisy, pull off their heist successfully -- though the revelation of their real terrorist aim shocks even Kit. Ironically, these masters of computer trickery are prevented from escaping by a primitive nemesis, the Scottish winter. The thieves take refuge in Oxenford’s house, the site of a large family gathering at which the holiday menu includes young love, middle-aged infidelity, jealousy and greed along with the turkey.
In Follett’s better work, such as his 1999 California earthquake novel, “The Hammer of Eden,” the characterization has some depth and the story makes room for social history as well as page-turning mechanics. Here, however, Scotland seems to be chosen solely for the sake of the blizzard, and the gears of the plot grind away without biting into anything bigger. We know who everyone is at first glance. Oxenford -- remarkably, in an era of pharmaceutical scandals -- is a pillar of strength and integrity. Gallo is universally capable. Her cop ex-lover is bitter and unreliable. The local TV reporter is a scandalmonger. The husband of one of Oxenford’s daughters is a charming cad. And so on. The rare instances when characters surprise us seem as calculated as everything else.
Still, Follett is a pro, and calculation has its place. When the thieves invade the house, and Gallo and the various Oxenfords, young and old, fight back as best they can, the synchronization of the action is impressive. Betrayals multiply, shots are fired, blows are landed, many vehicles are wrecked, and -- you can count on it -- the rats get loose. *