Arachnohazard by Wren Cavanagh

Arachnohazard by Wren Cavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Devon Douglas returns home only to find his mother and aunt dead and his father Terry dying a very horrible death. Terry had found out that John Edwards, a college of him had done horrible experiments with spiders and tried to put a stop to it, but in the end, Terry failed. And, Edwards revenge towards Terry was merciless. But, he didn't stop there. He took his creations, his mutated spiders and in what looks like harmless butterfly boxes he is spreading the spiders all over the USA...

I won this book a while back and I was really looking forward to reading it. This is actually my second spider book (See The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone) I have read this year. And, for some strange reason, despite not really liking spiders in real life do I like to read about spiders in a book. Or like, that's perhaps not the right term. It's more like I have found something to read about that really is dreadful (in a good way). And, it's not hard to get sucked into a story with awful mutated animals. Especially when it's well-written and never dull for a moment. Like this book. 

The book starts off with a BANG, or perhaps more with OUCH. Devon is at his father's deathbed. The doctors can't do anything more for him and his sister Aneni hasn't managed to get back in time. It's on Terry's deathbed that Devon learns the truth of Edwards, or parts of, more will come later. And, when Aneni gets back they decide to do as their father asked them to stop Edwards for good themselves since the army would only try to take him alive. And, as they prepare to stop him the butterfly boxes are starting to reveal its true content...

I found this book to be really good, and I enjoyed the illustrations in the book by Daniela Morescalchi. That was a very nice move. There are a lot of characters involved in the story. Some have important roles while other are just there for the moment. And, you could never really be sure who would live or die. Sometimes I felt a bit lost when the focused shifted to someone that I couldn't place, but only for a moment. The only time I was really confused was when I thought a soldier had died and then he was alive a couple of pages later on, but then again, there were a lot of soldiers and a lot of action going on with them and the mutated spiders. 

The book was great and as I said before, never a dull moment, and definitely not towards the end when everything came together for a spectacular finale. 

Arachnohazard is perhaps not an ideal book to read if you have arachnophobia. But, if you like well-written mutated spider books, then I recommend this one. And, if you ever see a butterfly box? RUN!