Ian Burford
Powered by Books.by
Ian Burford
An Andrew Harrison Adventure
by Ian Burford
When a mysterious illness strikes a local village with terrifying speed—killing 140 people in thirty-six hours without a single sign of contagion—Mike and dedicated field doctor Myah Willis stumble upon a horrific truth: they have been used as unwitting mules for a new breed of biological warfare.
RED 217 is not a typical virus. It is a binary weapon system. Stage One is a harmless “cold” that primes the victim’s DNA. Stage Two is the kill switch—a lethal pathogen that only strikes those already marked. It is the ultimate tool for “genocide for hire,” and someone is about to sell it to the highest bidder.
Enter Andrew “Harry” Harrison, an ex-Marine with a shadowy past and a “toolkit” that includes more than just spanners. As the team is hunted from the desert sands of Rafah to the quiet shores of Portland, England, they must race against time to reverse-engineer the virus before a massive release on American soil.
From high-stakes escapes across the Mediterranean to a final, deadly showdown in the heart of London, RED 217 is a gripping political thriller that asks: How much is a human life worth when mass murder is just a service?
Genocide for hire. A Shadow War is Coming to Your Doorstep. One bottle of water. Two deadly stages. No way out.
When Mike Bennett, a mechanic leading a humanitarian convoy into Gaza, discovers a trail of bodies with horrific, identical symptoms, he unknowingly stumbles onto the ultimate bioweapon: RED 217.
Alongside Myah, a brilliant doctor haunted by the casualties, and Harry, a man whose "private security" background hides lethal combat skills, Mike is thrust into a global conspiracy. From the ruins of Rafah to the corridors of Whitehall, the team is hunted by faceless assassins and Letbourne, a ruthless shadow operative.
The science is terrifyingly real: a "Stage One" virus is quietly dispersed to prime the population, turning ordinary people into walking targets for a "Stage Two" lethal trigger. The markets are infinite. The service? Genocide for hire. In a world where you can’t trust your government or even the water you drink, these three unlikely allies are the only ones standing between a shadowy elite and a silent, global slaughter. The clock is ticking, the infection has already begun, and they are next in the crosshairs.
“Alan Collins from Birmingham wrote on February 6, 2026 at 10:24 pm For fans of the "Golden Age" of adventure thrillers—think the rugged survivalism of Desmond Bagley, the clockwork plotting of Alistair MacLean, and the high-stakes technological menace of early Clive Cussler—Ian Burford’s RED 217 is a welcome return to form. The story hits the ground running with a classic MacLean-style setup: a small, mismatched team—an ex-Marine, a doctor, and a mechanic—thrust into a global conspiracy involving a binary bioweapon. The "Cascade Theory" , where a harmless "Stage One" virus primes a target for a lethal "Stage Two" trigger , is exactly the kind of clever, pseudo-scientific MacGuffin that would make Cussler proud. Burford captures the Bagley-esque atmosphere of men (and a very capable woman) in over their heads, forced to use their wits and specialized skills to survive. The pacing is relentless, moving from the dust of Gaza to a tense seaplane extraction and culminating in a rain-slicked London finale. The protagonist, Andrew Harrison, carries that quintessential hard-bitten edge—loyal yet lethal. While the "bad cop" routine with the Melvins might feel grittier than a traditional 1960s hero, his ultimate motivation—stopping a "genocide for hire" —is pure thriller gold.”
Alan Collins
“Burford channels the ghost of Clive Cussler in his ability to make complex science feel like a weapon of war, particularly with the terrifying two-stage mechanics of the Cascade virus. Yet, where Cussler often favoured the glossy and the grand, Burford stays in the trenches.”
Mike James
“The story moves with a relentless velocity that fans of Mark Greaney will recognise, shifting from the haunting ruins of Gaza to a high-stakes extraction via seaplane. Andrew Harrison lacks the invincibility of modern "super-soldiers," but echoes the gritty, tactical realism of a Desmond Bagley hero.”
Elena Weber
An overactive imagination and time on my hands. What could possibly go wrong?
From the rugged terrain of the Falklands to the high-tech hubs of the USA, Ian Burford has spent a lifetime gathering experiences across the globe. A veteran of the British Army, his service took him from Germany to the jungles of Belize, instilling a global perspective and a sharp eye for detail that informs every page he writes. His thirst for adventure later led him to Portugal, adding to a lifetime of extensive travel throughout Europe. When opportunity knocked by pure chance, Ian pivoted to the fast-paced IT sector in the United States, where he lived and worked for over twenty years before finally returning to the UK. Today, life moves at a slightly different pace. Ian resides on the Isle of Portland in the south of England with his wife and their dogs. When he isn’t writing, he can be found exploring the coastal paths of Dorset, drawing inspiration from the wild, windswept landscape he now calls home.