The Colony
A Novel
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4.1 • 48 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A series of gruesome attacks have been sweeping New York City. A teacher in Harlem and two sanitation workers on Wall Street are found dead, their swollen bodies nearly dissolved from the inside out. The predator is a deadly supercolony of ants--an army of one trillion soldiers with razor-sharp claws that pierce skin like paper and stinging venom that liquefies its prey.
The desperate mayor turns to the greatest ant expert in the world, Paul O'Keefe, a Pulitzer Prize–winning scientist in an Armani suit. But Paul is baffled by the ants. They are twice the size of any normal ant and have no recognizable DNA. They're vicious in the field yet docile in the hand. Paul calls on the one person he knows can help destroy the colony, his ex-wife Kendra Hart, a spirited entomologist studying fire ants in the New Mexico desert. Kendra is taken to a secret underground bunker in New York City, where she finds herself working side by side with her brilliant but arrogant ex-husband and a high-ranking military officer hell-bent on stopping the insects with a nuclear bomb.
When the ants launch an all-out attack, Paul and Kendra hit the dangerous, panic-stricken streets of New York, searching for a coveted queen. It's a race to unlock the secrets of an indestructible new species, before the president nukes Manhattan.
A.J. Colucci's debut novel is a terrifying mix of classic Michael Crichton and Stephen King. A thriller with the highest stakes and the most fascinating science, The Colony does for ants what Jaws did for sharks.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two years after a geneticist releases a huge queen ant in Manhattan's Riverside Park, New York City comes under attack from a vicious new species of ant in Colucci's exciting thriller debut. As the death toll rises, the ambitious mayor calls on Paul O'Keefe, a leading ant expert, for solutions. When Paul is stymied, the federal government snatches his ex-wife, entomologist Kendra Hart, from her research project in New Mexico. Kendra, who has just developed a method of destroying ant colonies by using pheromones to get its members to turn on each other, joins Paul in a race against the clock to find an answer for the catastrophic devastation the insects cause. While Colucci resorts to some old chestnuts of the subgenre, she makes what could have been a silly premise plausible, and balances scares and science nicely. Michael Crichton fans will hope that this is but the first of many such outings from the author's pen.
Customer Reviews
Great Read!
Science, thriller, page-turner. I never finished books quickly. But this was really entertaining and paced just like an action/sci-fi film.
I thought at first, "oh a book about killer ants," but got hooked into it after I read the sample. Couldn't resist.
And was totally worth the impulse buy. The story never dulls. If you've got some airplane/travel time coming up, this is a great way to pass the time waiting for delayed flight.
Fantastic
This is one you will not be able to put down.
Colony
Really enjoyed your book. I'll be sure to tell all. Best of luck to you. Laurie.