Collision of Centuries: A Franz Waldbaer Novel

Kommissar Franz Waldbaer of the Bavarian police gets on the trail of a bioterrorist in his suspenseful third outing (after 2012's Collision of Lies). When someone fatally strikes Andreas Pilcher, the man in charge of maintaining Count Rheinhold Graf von Winterloch's castle, Waldbaer is curious about the absence of blood around the corpse. A brief change of scene alerts the reader that something more than simple murder is going on. In a clinic in Madagascar, a doctor is collecting fleas carrying bubonic plague germs, planning to reengineer the disease to make it resistant to antibiotics. Waldbaer's probe is hampered by von Winterloch's lack of cooperation, which makes him suspect that the count knows more than he lets on. Three more deaths follow, and the autopsies reveal that some of the dead men were infected with a strain of the plague for which there's no cure. Le Beau effectively combines a scientific thriller and a whodunit. (Oct.)