A scary spy thriller.

Silly escapism. But with some interesting twists.

If I was editing, I would have cut the length of the novel in half. Many threads did not contribute to the plot resolution.

I Am Pilgrim (2015) is the debut novel by former journalist and screenwriter Terry Hayes. …

“Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. …

The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalized by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War.

Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus. Smallpox.

Smallpox was a terrible infectious disease.

Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence.

The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980,  making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.

Inoculation for smallpox appears to have started in China around the 1500s. In 1796, Edward Jenner introduced the modern smallpox vaccine.

Officially, 2 live samples of variola major virus remain, one in the United States at the CDC in Atlanta, and one at the Vector Institute in Koltsovo, Russia.

Between 65 and 80% of survivors are marked with deep pitted scars (pockmarks), most prominent on the face.

U.S. Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln all contracted and recovered from the disease. Washington became infected with smallpox on a visit to Barbados in 1751.

Finally, I feel the author was not successful in combining a lightweight good v evil thriller with some sort of philosophical overview.

Pick a lane. 😀