When Canaries Die

When Canaries Die is the third book in a three-book series in which the protagonist is a hotshot Harvard attorney Pierce Evangelista. This book is also the first, but not the last, review of a novel in this blog by Luis Figueredo. After finishing this book and before writing the review, I immediately downloaded the first book in the series, Dime. 

The story is a gruesome one about the next deadly virus that attacked the world. It originated with the Kayapo Indians in Brazil and it was quickly realized as having a fatality rate as bad as Ebola (93%) and was at least as contagious as Covid-19. As the disease rapidly spread throughout the world, there was no vaccine available and no other treatments were known. Initially, it was thought that blood transfusions would help delay the disease, and as a result, the world’s supply of blood was quickly exhausted. People were desperate to find a new source of blood, and it was then that Mexican cartels discovered it was more profitable to sell blood that it was to sell drugs. They began murdering people who were migrating through Mexico to get to the U.S. Meanwhile, the current American administration had put in place even more severe standards for letting anyone into the country as one means of containing the virus. Those people who were trapped on the Mexican side of the border became the cartels’ targets, and thousands were killed. The cartels were able to sell all the blood they could produce to one unscrupulous company, Lighthouse. The masterminds of Lighthouse managed to get the American administration to pass a law that would protect the company from any criminal liability.

 

It was an elegant argument before a federal judge when Evangelista explained the connection of the title of the book to the current horror, likening the use of canaries in coal mines as a safety measure to detect toxic gases, a technique that always killed the canaries. He said, “Today, the pandemic has made poor people targets as a resource for blood so others stricken by the virus can receive treatment. The migrants camped on our border desperately seeking asylum are human canaries.”

 

The first half of the book was about the spread of the disease and the worldwide panic that the disease cause, and the second half was about the legal battle between Evangelista and Lighthouse. This was one great legal drama. I’m ready for more from Luis Figueredo.