I picked up State of Fear by Michael Crichton on a radio recommendation. The book is a $6 paperback at Wal-Mart.

Crichton leads a lawyer, a secretary, and an ex-military scientist on a chase through Arizona, Antarctica, and the Solomon Islands. They unravel a plot by eco-terrorists to create natural disasters so that environmental groups can blame the incidents on global warming. It’s a thought-provoking book with some cool cliffhangers, but I wouldn’t call them “thrills” like rave reviewers.

The author prefaces his book by stating that he originally aimed to write a book under the premise that global warming was caused by man and could be prevented, but as he researched his book for three years, the data he uncovered was at best inconclusive. There are a lot of facts, figures, and footnotes woven into conversations and debates. The facts are real, but the story is fiction, of course.

Some spoilers follow…

The book begins with a millionaire who is a generous donor to environmental causes. He finds that some of his funding has been diverted to buy a special submarine. As he begins to understand the layers of organization his money passes through, some to questionable groups like the Earth Liberation Front, someone makes an attempt on his life. He escapes, only to fake his death in a car accident to get people off his trail. He shows up towards the end in the final scenes.

The main character is the lawyer, who is given instructions to have these charities audited. He initially supports the global warming theory but mollifies his stance gradually as he works with the ex-military scientist to find out the purpose of the special equipment purchased without the millionaire’s approval. They uncover plots to cause a flash flood and kill people in an Arizona park, to break off a large piece of Antarctic ice and cause a tsunami, and finally to cause a tsunami by placing explosives near a high earthquake zone (a tectonic subduction zone).

Crichton does a good job developing the characters, making the reader feel the shift in the lawyer’s attitude and the emotions of the environmental advocates. The people are believable. The technology he discusses to make some of these disasters seems a little farfetched, but given research nowadays it could be possible. The story flows very well, and I didn’t have to find myself rereading to see if I had missed something.

The book is a little tougher read than say a Ludlum or Flynn novel, but it’s informative as well as entertaining. I recommend it to those who read a lot of sci-fi or espionage stories.