This gets marketed as sci-fi but it's really more of a medical thriller and reminded me a bit of those popular old Robin Cook novels. When retrieving an outer space probe, the military finds that some infectious agent on the probe has killed most of a small western town, except for two survivors: a baby and an old drunk. A secret protocol called "Wildfire" is launched, and a team of scientists race to find out what kind of infectious agent it is, why the two people survived it, and how it can be contained or eliminated. As J. pointed out, the team doesn't actually do too much except avert one huge mistake at the end. Spoiler alert: the alien pathogen mutates into a non-lethal form all by itself. This wasn't a bad book, and I think Crichton probably did a lot of research about infectious agents that was very up-to-date when he wrote it, but less so now. Still, if I were recommending a Crichton novel to anyone, I'd suggest starting with "Jurassic Park" instead. The 1971 movie based on "Andromeda" wasn't bad and actually has a female scientist in it, unlike the book!