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12·21 is a thriller of the pandemic variety. This time, instead of a bacteria or virus being the cause of a widespread killer disease, the culprit is a prion. What’s a prion? What I gathered from the book is that prions are proteins that can reproduce on their own, they can become infectious, and they are the cause of Mad Cow disease.  Not pleasant.

In 12·21, Thomason pairs a seemingly incurable prion disease with supposed Mayan predictions about the end of the world on December 21, 2012. I say supposed predictions because most people don’t really believe that the world will end on 12-21

12.21 is Dustin Thomason’s second book after his well received debut novel Rule of Four that he co-wrote with his friend Ian Caldwell. 12.21 is a quite timely thriller as the premise is based on a 2012 apocalypse phenomenon. The main male character is a doctor specializing in incurable prion diseases and who has just been notified about an unusual prion case at an L.A. Hospital. The main female character is a Guatemalan American museum researcher focusing on Mayan studies and who has recently acquired unknown and invaluable ancient Mayan codex that was smuggled into the USA. They meet when she