I’m not a fan of horror, but I’m a huge fan of Douglas Preston. He recently served a term as president of the Author’s Guild where he fought against the A.I. machines stealing our work. But his talents lie in his writing abilities: journalism, nonfiction, and fiction. His article on the Amanda Knox case is a classic in group-think online terrorism.

Preston puts himself right in the action in his nonfiction books, even to the point of risking his life (see: The Monster of Florence and Lost City of the Monkey God). He sometimes co-writes novels with Lee Child, but his solo efforts appeal to me more. He takes modern fears, bases them in today’s science news, and comes up with breakneck thrillers. Extinction is no exception, and more terrifying than his previous works combined.

You’ve probably read about efforts to bring extinct species back to life: passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths, etc. First popularized in Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, the notion of finding ancient DNA and using it to gestate a long-gone creature—not necessarily one we’d really care to meet face-to-face—is not science fiction. Preston is well aware that human hubris may take us down this path in directions we really shouldn’t venture.

Extinction is set in a fictional mountain valley in Colorado, privately owned and well-guarded. Deep inside an abandoned mine is a state-of-the-art lab bringing said mammoths back to life, as well as other megafauna such as giant ground sloths and Irish elk.

Wealthy guests enjoy a five-star resort experience including safaris through this unique zoo. When a billionaire’s son and wife are apparently murdered on a backcountry camping trip within the valley’s confines, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is brought in to investigate. They find no bodies, but enough blood to know there were no survivors of the attack.

All the de-extincted animals in the resort are herbivores. This must be the work of eco-terrorists trying to disrupt the project, the authorities surmise. But as the investigation progresses, more deaths occur and the evidence reeks of cannibalism.

If you venture into this book, be prepared for some gruesome scenes. But don’t think that the events Preston depicts could never happen in real life. They very well just might.