My introduction to Michael Crichton was through his first novel The Andromeda Strain. I read the hardcover version while I was at High School - end of 70's - and really enjoyed the book. It was written as a page by page account of a microbiological crisis where a small town in the U.S. is devastated by a sudden epidemic. I think it was one of the first books that used the style of a stopwatch account of events in real time, since time was very essential for the events happening. A "scientific thriller" was not very commonplace in those years (now there are many examples of it and more come every day).

The progression of the book, with several scientific theories examined and discredited, was also breath-taking. There was a movie adaptation later, but it was a low-budget item which did not cause too much of an impact on the movie world.