"Stacy Richardson is a feisty microbiology graduate student at the University of Southern California, taking her final doctoral exams. In the middle of her "Quals," Stacy learns that her husband, head of the University's Microbiology Department, has "committed suicide" while on sabbatical at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where a super-secret bio-weapons lab run by Admiral James G. Zoll and known as the Devil's Workshop is located."--BOOK JACKET. "Meanwhile, two train-riding hobos, "Lucky" Cunningham and "Hollywood Mike," are traveling near Vanishing Lake, Texas. Unbeknownst to them, a prison at Vanishing Lake is being used by Admiral Zoll and Dr. Dexter DeMille, a Nobel laureate microbiologist, to test the newest generation of bio-weapons, called Prions. Strategic operational Prions can attack specific ethnic groups by targeting their unique DNA characteristics, resulting in the quick destruction of the brain's mood center and then death."--BOOK JACKET. "A bio-accident at Vanishing Lake turns the town into a living hell; one of the many casualties is Hollywood Mike, who, it turns out, is the son of egomaniacal, larger-than-life motion picture producer Buddy Brazil. Dr. DeMille is able to escape from Admiral Zoll and the disaster at Vanishing Lake with the help of Reverend Fannon Kincaid, a charismatic and violent hobo priest, and his band of train-riding white supremacists."--BOOK JACKET. "A complex, poignant romance between Stacy and Lucky ensues, as our heroes get dangerously close to the horrific truth about the Devil's Workshop while trying to stop the evil Fannon Kincaid from "detonating" the frightening new bio-weapon."--BOOK JACKET.