LIQUID SNAKES, by Stephen KearseSomeone sound the alarms, bar the labs and give Dr. Fauci a ring — the scientists have gone mad. Not in real life, thankfully, but in “Liquid Snakes,” Stephen Kearse’s new novel, in which two C.D.C. epidemiologists try to track down a man’s home-brewed drug that he plans to wield as a bioweapon for revenge. Clever, pretentious and a bit sociopathic, Kenny is the mad scientist Walter White-ing his way through an unnecessarily involved revenge plot. But unlike Walter, Kenny is awfully dull.

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Persons: Stephen Kearse, Fauci, Stephen Kearse’s, epidemiologists, Kenny Bomar, Kenny milks, Kenny, Walter White, Walter, don’t Organizations: Valencia