Finished: Zoo (Patterson) The ads for the TV show prompted me to read this book, a definite page-turner about animals suddenly getting smarter and planning group attacks on humans. Only one man, scientist Jackson Oz, believes that the world is headed for an animal meltdown of global proportions, but no one will listen to him. He travels to Africa to see if he can get the abnormal lion behavior on camera to bring back and show the United States. He can't believe the orchestrated attack that the male lions perpetrate....killing his guide and nearly killing Jackson. On his way back to base camp, he spots French biologist, Chloe, clinging to a rock, surrounded by vicious crocodiles. He manages to save her life and get them back to the U.S. where still, even after seeing the footage, no one will take him seriously. When he returns to his own apartment in New York, his pet chimpanzee, Attila, has gone crazy in the same way and killed the person taking care of him. Attila escapes out the window and we flash forward five years. Oz and Chloe have married and have a three year old son, Eli. The world is in chaos from animals running rampant and attacking...dogs, cats, rats, lions, leopards, dolphins, bats, chimpanzees, etc. Finally, the government is ready to listen to Oz and Oz finally, after five years figures it out....the animals aren't attacking because of a virus like rabies (which they thought for several years). They are attacking because of the unusual pheromones they smell in the air. And the pheromones are caused by a breakdown in the ecosystem caused by too much cell phone radiation and too much oil byproduct in the air. Oz finally convinces the president and all the world leaders that humans need to totally shut down their cell phones, turn off their cars, shut off all electricity, basically, no planes, no trains, etc., until they can figure out how to create a long term solution. The world complies, and two days later, the animals are miraculously going back to their normal patterns after viciously killing so many people. On the third day, the government starts to get lax and starts granting special permits for phone, car and plane usage. Other governments do the same thing, and within a day, the animals are back to killing people. The top government officials of the U.S., plus the scientists, including Oz and his family are whisked off to Iceland to live, apparently the rest of their lives? That's where the book ends. Hmmm. Oh, and at one point when Oz was in Washington D.C. trying to convince the president of the urgency of the matter, Chloe was hold up back in the new "military zone" of the upper east side of New York in a fancy townhouse. It gets all scary because Attila and two other chimps have broken the glass and are about to enter the room where she and little Eli are, and they are ready to kill some human meat. Attila can smell the nervous female odor...but then he smells something else, a whiff of a boy who smells like someone he used to know...someone who rescued him from his laboratory cage and used to cradle him and feed him. He smells Oz in Eli. He forces his other chimp friends to leave and go to another building, saving Chloe and Eli. Anyway...the book was really good until the ending where all the people just forgot after only three days how serious things were. Maybe the author doesn't have too much faith in the people? Who knows, maybe that's what everyone would do. I plan to watch the TV series when it comes on and see how it is! :-)