BooksChatter: ✉ Writing The Ebola Game: Dr. Scott James [3]

Today we welcome back author Glenn Shepard as he takes over our blog to tell us about his latest novel, The Ebola Game (16 December 2015, Mystery House, 145 pages), a Thriller, book three of Dr. Scott James series (each instalment is stand-alone).

Guest Post: Writing The Ebola Game | Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Interview With Glenn Shepard | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Writing The Ebola Game

In The Ebola Game, my villain is trying to create a biological weapon based on dubious science. Though this is an action book more than a technical medical thriller, I have tried to stay within the bounds of fact. It hasn’t been easy.

First, a brief history: The first report of the virus was along the Ebola River in Zaire, now the Republic of the Congo, in 1976. Afterward it was dormant for roughly nine years. It sprang up again in the Congo in 1995. It appeared again in Uganda in 2000, and then once again in the recent Sierra Leone epidemic.

Unfortunately, each time there has been an epidemic, it’s gotten worse. The 1976 epidemic had 109 cases. The one in 1995 had 315. In 2000, there were 425 cases. The latest outbreak, in 2015, peaked with more than four thousand cases.

The recent epidemic has totally subsided. Occasionally there is a case, but the world is currently free of the disease, more or less.

Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids. Virtually all credible evidence points to the idea that the virus cannot be transmitted through the air. This presented a problem in writing the new book because I wanted my bad guy to construct a biological weapon based on the virus. No spoilers here, just suffice it to say that I just let the characters play it out on their own.

The characters in the book also discuss the fact that monkeys, chimps, and apes carry the disease, and eating their flesh has been attributed to the transmission of Ebola. Strains of bats in Africa also carry the disease, many times for long periods of time without becoming infected.

There is one alarming note I should add: During my research for this novel, I encountered a lot of tight lips. I cannot comment on the availability of drugs and therapies in the areas of the epidemic, but I can say that the doctors and pharmaceutical-types I dealt with had no desire whatsoever to disseminate information. I’ve incorporated the scourge of in-cooperation into the story. Everything is material.

GS