A decent thriller. The beginning is kind of slow after the opening scenes where Amika is let go from her position in Berkeley. I found myself wondering why/how all the action involving trying to tranquilize animals and the subsequent death tied into the overall story line. Still, though, the double-crosses and general intrigue won me over.

This book is a little to scary as it is very realistic and could possibly come true.  It is very well written and it will scare the pants off of you.

3.5 stars. This is the first book by Amy Rogers that I have read so I wasn't sure what to expect. What I found was a well written medical thriller. This can be read as a standalone. There is violence.

The book blurb adequately describes the storyline so I'm not going to repeat that all info here. The author did a good job of explaining what is going on and describing the history and settings of the story. The characters, even though I couldn't stand some of them, were well written and multidimensional. There are a lot of clues in the storyline that keep you guessing what twists and turns will be revealed next. This storyline makes you wonder if this could be happening right now somewhere in the world.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and chose to leave a review for other readers.

The Han Agent originally interested me because it was listed as science fiction with a background in the flu epidemics that have spanned time, but it is so much more then that.  It reads to me like a thriller, I often could not put the book down and when I did put the book down my heart was pounding.  The main character Amika is great, her voice throughout the book is not so scientifically driven that I couldn't understand the complex things she was going through, but at the same time I learned a lot about influenza from this book, which is exactly how I like my hard science fiction.  What happens in the book could actually happen in our present day, which is both terrifying and puts a dose of reality in the book that is not found in others.  

The book starts in the 1930s following the projects found from Japanese unit 731, which was a biological and chemical warfare group that did many crimes of humanity, but the quest for the perfect biological weapon did not end when WWII ended.  Amika is thrown into a terrible situation and needs to find a way out of it alive, along with her younger brother Shuu.  It took me a little bit to really love Amika, but once I did the book had me hooked 100%. I think the best part about the book is that I was as shocked and surprised as Amika was went the plot started moving, which stands to say that Rogers voice while writing was amazing.

While most of you who have followed my reviews for a while know I love sci-fi, fantasy, Jane Austen, history, and architecture, most of you probably don't know that I'm a card carrying scientist with a PhD. While my area of expertise is now chemistry, my undergraduate degree was in Microbiology and Immunology. My parents are physician researchers. I've been a National Science Foundation fellow. And thus, my problems with this book begin.

Amika Nakamura is a post-doctoral research fellow who mysteriously finds a way to acquire highly infectious viral culture specimens of the 1918 influenza that caused the global pandemic that wiped out millions. She is working with them in her humble Berkeley virology lab clean room, unbeknownst to her post-doctoral advisor, and the university, until with much hubris she submits a paper for a conference about her research. Because if you're doing something illicit, by all means try to tell the entire research community. Yeah, it's amazing that she could keep that whole thing going, especially since highly contagious influenza viruses require at a minimum Bio-Safety Level 2 facilities and in the case of particularly virulent forms, BSL-3 facilities. There are only a handful of BSL-3 rated facilities in the US and Berkeley isn't one of them. Okay, you say, suspend a little belief. This is fiction. Well...

Imagine a protagonist who is filled with hubris, who gets fired for blatantly unsafe research you have no idea how she was doing in the first place, who has to destroy all her specimens because they are so unsafe, and who takes a job with a big Japanese pharma firm and then spends her time ogling the big director thinking to herself that Hiroshi Naito is good-looking and so of course she should try to seduce him because "job security and a little fun." Hey great idea, <i>said no female scientist wanting to be taken seriously EVER.</i> This character and her various machinations are like a parody. From trying to help her brother by going along with a trumped up rape scenario she denies to a reporter and then later tacitly confirms in public, this character lacks all credibility and logic for a trained scientist. Amika-san has to be one of the least likable lead characters I've read in a long time. She has nothing going for her. She is shallow, calculating, and risk-taking in a field where risk can easily kill people. All the characters appear to be equally vacuous, and self-consumed, btw. 

And then there is the backdrop of the research scenario and its lack of understanding of public health research. For instance, if you have an outbreak of avian flu, do you 1) do sample collection and analysis through your governmental public health branch to research and track the flu or 2) give all your bird specimens to a big pharma company and tell them to start gain-of-function research on a vaccine? (By which, in the latter case, we mean lump together a whole bunch of terminology and try to make a plausible story out of them.) Why, 2, of course! The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan wants no part of this scary bad research and is happy to have a post-doctoral fellow, who was FIRED from her previous gig for doing unsafe research, handling the research for a mega-corporation interested in helping viral genes GAIN function (by which we mean enhanced activation of various genes of interest). Of course they do.

Rogers has taken a bunch of facts about influenza and avian flu (including the very real fact that in Japan they have had a great interest in the risks of an influenza pandemic affecting a densely populated country, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9REAM329LI for instance) and the dispute over the Shenkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands and, like a test to see if it's cooked spaghetti, she has thrown them together to make a story stick against a dryase board. 

On top of these overriding problems, I have the underlying issue of cultural appropriation, with which I can foresee others far more qualified than I am will have a boatload of fun. Yes, those clever revenge-seeking Japanese and those bad Chinese jackals! Add viruses! Shake, stir! Oh, such fun! 

If you want to read a good fiction book about a pandemic, reread Richard Preston's <i>The Cobra Event.</i> If you want political intrigue added to a global viral mutation pandemic, read Mira Grant's <i>Newsflesh</i> series.

Special note added: Why do you have to heavily tranquilize a goat, when already you're "vaccinating" them with birth control in a dart? Hmmm. Search me.

This was very well written..  I was confused on the first pages figuring out who was doing what.  After getting through that it was a good book.

A real page turner couldn't put it down characters are well developed

SLOW!  I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.  Written by Amy Rogers in 2017, and published by Science Thrillers Media, the book is about the Japanese and the Chinese in modern-day Asia.  Han is the ethnic group that is native to more than 90% of China and Taiwan.  The story begins with a fictionalized account of the WWII top secret project conducted by the Japanese military and government to develop a biological weapon in Manchuria.  This project was successfully obliterated by the Japanese before the Soviets and Americans could detect any trace of it at the end of the war.  All reference to it in Japanese history was vigorously suppressed.  Eventually, the truth was revealed, but it wasn’t until many years later.  

Dr. Amika Nakamura is a Japanese-American biological researcher at UC, Berkeley.  She is conducting “Gain-of-Function” DNA experiments on the Bird Flu virus when details of her work are learned of by her superiors.  She is promptly fired in disgrace and travels to Japan where she finds a job with the giant pharmaceutical conglomerate: Koga.  Koga is in the business of manufacturing vaccines, including flu vaccines, so it is a good fit for Amika.  Besides, her little brother Shuu also works for Koga, and Amika is very protective of him.  He had received a Bad Conduct Discharge from the (US) army for an incident that took place in Korea, and he, too, had taken a position in Japan working for Koga.  The story centers around the disputed Senkaku Islands, near the southern tip of the Japanese archipelago, near Taiwan.  Both China and Japan lay claim to the islands, which did not seem particularly important to either nation until, according to Wikipedia: “the People's Republic of China (PRC) started taking up the question of sovereignty over the islands in the latter half of 1970 when evidence relating to the existence of oil reserves surfaced. Taiwan (Republic of China) also claims the islands. The territory is close to key shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds, and there may be oil reserves in the area.”  The story, then, is well grounded in reality.  

Even though this story is a work of fiction, the dispute over these islands is real — it is not fictional.  When Japan purchased three of the islands from a so-called “private owner” in September of 2012, the result was wide-scale protests in China.  Further complicating matters is a treaty between Japan and the United States that would require the US to come to the aid of Japan to defend the islands from attack in the event of an invasion by China.  In 2013, China retaliated by setting up a military "East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone" that would require that all aircraft entering the area around the islands file a flight plan and radio or transponder frequencies with China.  (Wikipedia)  

The first half of the book drags as the overconfident-to-the-point-of-arrogance Amika convinces herself that she has everything under control.  She doesn’t.  Like so many Americans, she has, at best, a tenuous grasp of History, and powerful forces that she does not comprehend are at work all around her.  This protagonist was not, to me, a very likable person.  She is focused on her own self-interests, and these include a Nobel Prize in Biology. 
I found a few minor inconsistencies in the book, one of which was Amika’s gown that she wore to the party with Hiroshi.  Earlier, she had observed that, even though her gown flared at the bottom, she would have problems taking a long stride.  Then, when she and Hiroshi decide to have sex, she is able to “. . . [coil] one leg around his back side, squeezing his pelvis tighter against hers.”  How does she do that while wearing a gown about which she says “She could walk, but long strides would be impossible in this”?  

All in all, the book seems to be a bit slow, and sometimes it’s predictable.  Because of this, I was not as surprised at the ending as I thought I would be.  The science is good, but the action is largely missing from a story that is supposed to be a thriller.  I did not enjoy it all that much, but I award it three stars because I believe a lot of readers might.  The author ties up loose ends at the conclusion of the story, but I found that ending to be a bit unsatisfying.

The Han Agent captivates the reader from the first paragraph!  If you enjoy reading medical thrillers.. then, this is a MUST read!! It combines the flu pandemic of 1918 and the Japanese Unit 731 in China during WWII.  The pace is steady and convincingly real!  Frightfully, the story is one fraught with twists and turns that the reader will not see coming!  I love not being able to figure out mysteries.  That alone lets the reader know that the story is rich in detail and a very satisfying read!

One cannot help rooting for the young female scientist, Amika Nakamura and her brother.  Amika has lost her job in California.. and her career is saved by her brother.  She suddenly finds herself in Japan, with full permission to explore the DNA (actually.. it's RNA) of the influenza virus.  Amika has no plans to develop a biological weapon.. her goal is to save millions of lives.. every year with figuring out how the flu virus can be tamed.  Not realizing.. that she has actually made the ultimate biological weapon that many governments around the world want to control.  Genocide.  

Extremely well written!  One heck of a thriller!  I totally enjoyed every word!

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Second review on Authors on the Air:  

The Han Agent by Amy Rogers
Publisher: ScienceThrillers Media (September 5, 2017)
Publication Date: September 5, 2017
Sold by: Macmillan
 One cannot help rooting for the very driven, female scientist, Amika Nakamura. Amika has lost her University job in California.. and her career is saved by her brother. She suddenly finds herself in Japan, with full permission to explore the DNA (actually.. it's RNA) of the influenza virus.

Amika has no plans to develop a biological weapon.. her goal is to save millions of lives.. every year with figuring out how the flu virus can be tamed. Not realizing.. that she has actually made the ultimate biological weapon that many governments around the world want to control. The perfect weapon! One that the bad guys will stoop to a low-life method to control Amika by putting her brother into serious jeopardy that threatens his life if she does not do what they want. Make the perfect biological weapon.

Just in time for flu season! This novel will have the readers running to get their flu shots! The Han Agent captivates the reader from the first paragraph! If you enjoy reading medical thrillers.. then, this is a MUST read!! It combines the flu pandemic of 1918 and the Japanese Unit 731 in China during WWII. The pace is steady and convincingly real!

Extremely well written! One heck of a thriller! I totally enjoyed every word!

This was a quick, easy and interesting read as it moved along rapidly while doing its best to portray genetic manipulation skeptically.  Lots of action which provided confusion at first but eventually established the background necessary for the plot.  The good guys win, in spite of the evil genetic manipulation scheme to wipe out a significant portion of the population of China.  Couldn't really tell if the author is for or against genetic engineering which should establish the tone as cautionary as opposed to proselytizing.  All in all enjoyable, not preachy, and quickly read, a good summer book.

Review: THE HAN AGENT 

Science is one of my fascinations, and the science premise of THE HAN AGENT is not just fascinating, but highly topical and up-to-date. When a driven Japanese-American scientist with a genius at viral genetics is dismissed from UC-Berkeley for being a lone wolf and violating restrictions, she is snapped up by a Japanese pharmaceutical megaconglomerate. She thinks her value is her scientific knowledge, but she could not imagine what the family-owned corporation intends: to extend the medical depredations of Japan's infamous Unit 731, in the 1930's and 1940's, to eradicate the hated Chinese.

THE HAN AGENT is a thought-provoking, eye-opening, nonstop scientific thriller.

It was a  chilling medical thriller that I hope  never becomes  reality.

An engaging and absorbing story that is all too plausible especially in the world we live in today. 
Terrifyingly realistic, this book will stay with you long after the final page. 
This is a must read for anyone who loves suspenseful, intelligent thrillers. 
5 Stars. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 
I am now a fufull-fledged Amy Rogers fan.