Stephen J. Cannell is a well-known television producer. He even does some acting now and then. Now he has begun a secondary career as a novelist. He has just written his fifth book. The title of the novel is The Devil's Workshop and was published by William Morrow And Company.

Stacy Richardson is starting to take her oral exams for a doctorate in microbiology. The proceedings are interrupted when Stacy's sister in-law comes in and says that her brother Max, Stacy's husband, has just committed suicide. It seems that Max had become despondent and had shot himself.

Stacy goes to Fort Detrick, Maryland where this supposed suicide took place. She gets stonewalled when wanting answers to questions about Max's death. Stacy finds evidence that Max was murdered. She attempts to get the military authorities to listen to her and tell her what really happened.

It seems that Max was working on something called Prions and that they were a deadly element that could wipe out a bunch of people at once. Max was one of the heads of the project. Stacy begins to try to find evidence about what Max had been working on and why he was murdered.

Cris Cunningham had been a hero in the Gulf War. He brought back a medal from that desert conflict. He also brought back a disease that later killed his daughter. Cris couldn't handle life after that and became a hobo that rode the railroad cars around the country. He became known among the other hobos as Lucky.

Admiral Zoll is in charge of the Fort Detrick project. He and the team, now headed by Dr. Dexter DeMille, are down in Vanishing Lake Village in Texas working on a finishing phase of the project. Something goes wrong and people at Vanishing Lake begin to kill each other. Stacy observes this behavior there as she has come into the area undercover to discover what Zoll and DeMille are really up to and find evidence of Max's murder.

Lucky and another hobo named Hollywood Mike try to leave the area. They have been hanging around Vanishing Lake and even met Stacy when trying to get some food. As they try to leave, Mike ends up becoming crazy and ends up dying. Lucky thinks that he accidentally killed Mike. Information about Mike gets to his dad who is a big time movie producer in L.A. His body is shipped back to L.A.

The people in charge of the Vanishing Lake project try to contain it. DeMille is about to be killed when he is rescued by a group of White Supremacists that ride the rails and spew out hate doctrine. The leader of the group has a plan for DeMille and the Prions.

Mike's body is stolen from the morgue in L.A. and that sets forth a series of events that put Lucky together with Stacy. They end up enlisting the help of Mike's father, Buddy Brazil.

Together, the trio tries to find out what's really going on and to get evidence to stop Zoll. Buddy wants someone to answer for Mike's death, Stacy wants to prove that Max was murdered and Cris wants retribution for what happened to his daughter.

The Devil's Workshop is another fast paced thrill ride by Stephen J. Cannell. He seems to be able to draw from his experiences in the entertainment industry to produce a story that is both highly entertaining and completely believable.

Copyright © 2000 Bruce E. Von Stiers