The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
Genre: Hard Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic
2.99 at time of posting!
From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life.
Five prominent biophysicists have warned the United States government that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, a probe satellite falls to the earth and lands in a desolate region of northeastern Arizona. Nearby, in the town of Piedmont, bodies lie heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. What could cause such shock and fear? The terror has begun, and there is no telling where it will end.
Nesie's Place 
Just done some googling and discovered “A is for Andromeda” was a 1961 TV series and book by Astronomer Fred Hoyle with John Elliot – not connected in any way to Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain” which was indeed set in the USA and published in 1969. My apologies for the earlier post!
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I believe there was a TV serial based on the book in the UK in the 1960s
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I remember enjoying this book, and the sequel “A is for Andromeda” when it first came out. I even recorded them as audio books for a charity for local visually impaired people. But it was originally set in a remote part of Scotland and written long before Jurassic Park. The version described here must have been rewritten for the US market.
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Oooh I remember loving this book and being excited by it years ago.. Great read
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