'As in most crises, the events surrounding the Andromeda Strain were a compound of foresight and foolishness, innocence and ignorance.'

An unmanned satellite returns to earth mysteriously and lethally contaminated. Immediately 'Project Wildfire', the crash mobilisation of America's highest scientific and medical resources, begins at Wildfire's secret laboratory five storeys beneath the Nevada desert. There, surrounded by banks of the most sophisticated computer-assisted equipment, and under conditions of total secrecy, four scientists work against the threat of a world-wide epidemic. They are seeking an antidote to a deadly micro-organism, and their hunt mounts to a horrifying climax ...