Virals (novel)

Virals is the first novel in the Virals series of novels for young adults written by the American forensic anthropologist and crime writer, Kathy Reichs, and her son Brendan Reichs, featuring Tory Brennan, great-niece of Temperance Brennan.

Tory and her friends, Hiram (mostly known as Hi), Ben, and Shelton, find a rusted dog tag dating from the Vietnam War era on Loggerhead Island; trying to identify its owner leads them to an unsolved murder and infection by an experimental virus that gives them special powers, which they describe as "flaring".

They acquire the infection while saving a wolfdog being used for illegal experiments by Dr. Karsten, who was funded by a company which belongs to Chance Claybourne's Dad.

They manage to escape, but the next time they visit (with their parents and a police officer), the skeleton has been replaced with monkey bones.

The book has also been published in French (as Viral, Pocket, 2011), German (Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, 2011), and Italian (Rizzoli, 2011)