Science Traveler

In The Flu Is Coming, a new type of flu - the Philippine flu -kills nearly half of the residents in an upscale, gated community near Albuquerque in less than a week. Those who survive become virtual prisoners in their homes, when a quarantine is imposed. The Centers of Disease Control recruits Sara Almquist, a resident of the community and a scientist, to apply her skills as an epidemiologist to find ways to limit the spread of the epidemic. As she pries into her neighbors' lives, she finds promising scientific clues. Unfortunately, she also learns too much about several of them and violence ensues when several try to escape the quarantine.

Sara Almquist couldn't say no, when invited to be the epidemiologist on a public health mission to assess children's health in Bolivia. Soon someone from her past in New Mexico is chasing her through the Witches' Market of La Paz and on to the silver mines of Potosí. Unfortunately, she can't trust her colleagues on the fact-finding mission, especially the sexy Xave Zack, because any one of them might be under the control of the coca industry in Bolivia. Worse still, she's not only put herself in danger, but also her sister Linda back in New Mexico.

Sara Almquist is shot at twice in one day. Albuquerque police fear her work for them as a science consultant on previous cases has put her in danger, but the accumulating evidence doesn't make sense. Thus, when colleagues in the State Department invite Sara to arrange exchanges between scientists in the U.S. and Cuba, she jumps at the chance to get out of New Mexico and to work again with the mysterious Xave Zack. Maybe it's not a wise decision.

A mysterious source of data on the Iranian nuclear industry sends an email from Tabriz. "Help. Contact Almquist." As Sara Almquist is, drawn into the plan to identify and rescue the agent, known only as F, she is, forced to remember and re-evaluate characters from her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and from her career as a globetrotting scientist. 1 map of the Middle East with important locations in I Saw You in Beirut. A section on "Science and History Behind the Story" after the novel includes relevant scientific references.

Leaders of drug gangs in New Mexico don't want scientist Sara Almquist to testify at their upcoming trials for murder and racketeering. After Sara gets a package of sheep guts contaminated with the bacteria that causes the plague, FBI agents rush to protect her. But, is the package a threat from the gangs to stop her from testifying or a public health alert by a whistleblower? This mystery/ thriller is an example of science in fiction.

In Dirty Holy Water, scientist Sara Almquist loses control of her life when she becomes the chief suspect in a bizarre murder case. She's frustrated by the slow progress of the investigations, which almost causes her to miss a romantic rendezvous at the Taj Mahal in India. More importantly, she has to reassess her friendships and recognize there's a thin line between, being a victim and being a villain.

Scientist Sara Almquist is asked to investigate a death of a participant in a clinical trial conducted by a biotechnology company making cultured meat-meat made in a test tube. She learns although the product may sometimes contain toxic components, the competition among biotechnology companies and bickering within the company may be lethal. This is an example of science in fiction with a realistic description of the biotechnology necessary to make cultured meat.

Sara Almquist and her FBI colleagues rush to find who endangered the lives of hundreds at a political rally in order to poison with botulism toxin their target-a woman candidate for the U.S. Senate. Soon, Sara is tracking related murders in the fashionable spas in Santa Fe and Albuquerque as the culprits try to cover their tracks.

The U.S. consular office in Manaus, Brazil, is a "bungle in the jungle." Can Sara Almquist and the new Acting Ambassador to Brazil figure out how the staff in this remote office in the middle of the Amazon jungle became so enmeshed in the illegal international trade of drugs and cultural artifacts?

An environment that pleases one individual may be a nightmare to others. Sara Almquist, an FBI scientific consultant, confronts this truth as she investigates the murder of a young man near a historic cave in New Mexico. As Sara reconstructs the victim's final days, she learns the autistic victim found the cave to be soothing. She finds the cave to be depressing. Maybe, Sara dislikes the cave because the case is so complicated. She's also having trouble breaking in a young partner-Jack Drum. Or perhaps, she's distracted. Sara and her long-term boyfriend-Eric Sanders-have come to recognize the disparity in their goals and comfort spots.

Who can a FBI agent and a scientist trust as they investigate a murder in the ghost town of Golden Gully? The medical examiner thinks the victim was tortured before he was killed. However, the ten residents in this remote town in the Gila National Forest deny knowing him, and the local sheriff's office is less than cooperative. This is the thirteenth book in the Science Traveler series with Sara Almquist as a science consultant to the FBI and other agencies.

Scientist Sara Almquist and her FBI colleagues investigate the murder of a retired professor. Why did someone poison his booze with methanol? Did he knew too much about the dark side of a successful chain of senior living centers? Or had he played too many pranks on his friends and neighbors? This is the fourteenth mystery in the Science Traveler series which features scientist Sara Almquist. The books do not need to be read in sequence.

The wildlife refuge at Bosque del Apache is a noisy but idyllic spot as sandhill cranes settle there for the winter. Then a body of man wearing new red boots is found on Christmas Day. Scientist Sara Almquist and her collaborators in the FBI and the Bureau of Land Management quickly learn many-family members and almost everyone who worked with the victim at the local school-had reasons for wishing him dead.