Zodiac — Neal Stephenson

Two centuries after the Boston Tea Party, harbor dumping is still a favorite local sport, only this time it's major corporations piping toxic wastes into the water. Environmentalist and professional pain in the ass Sangamon Taylor is Boston's modern-day Paul Revere, spreading the word from a 40-horsepower Zodiac raft. Embarrassing powerful corporations in highly telegenic ways is the perfect method of making enemies, and Taylor has a collection that would do any rabble-rouser proud.

After his latest exploit, he's wanted by the FBI, possibly by the Mafia, and definitely by a group of Satanist angel-dust heads who think he's looking for a PCP factory, not PCB contamination. Pretty soon dodging bullets is the least of Taylor's problems--because somewhere out there are an unhinged genetic engineer and a lab-concocted bacterium that could destroy all ocean life...and that's just for appetizers.

Frightening, funny, fast, and furious, Zodiac is thrilling speculative fiction torn straight from today's headlines.