What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

It's like converting a vampire, though I'm sure vampires are not the subject matter of the book.

Instead the book is more of a semi-action, semi-corporate espionage, with the horror elements of converting humans into said monsters. The conversion is done by kissing.

I remember the scene at the start. The protagonist walks into the company campus and is wondering where everybody is. Someone then shouts at him from a window asking who he is and then why he's so late. It's comes off as uppity.

The wife is very eager to have sex with him, which is a surprise to him. Their marriage has been in trouble I think. But now she looks new and improved. They don't have sex.

I think there is a scene where he pretends to be asleep and watches his wife undress. Her shadow on the wall does strange things, like something is running up and down her body I think.

He gets friendly with a few people he meets there at the company and they discover that the wife and the boss are having an affair. I think they see their shadows through a translucent office wall getting into an embrace and kissing. His new friends (or I think just the female of the group, the protagonist's eventual love interest) abashedly remark that there have been remarks about how chummy the wife and the boss have been getting, but no one thought they were actually having an affair.

Then the truth about how the boss and the wife are no longer human comes out. We witness a conversion of someone they capture into the monster (or maybe an attempted one, or maybe they just suck their essence off and kill them). I think this conversion is done by kissing (like deep and prolonged kissing, or some other sexual act). Probably that's why his wife wanted to have sex with him, to convert him.

Remember the friend group of the protagonist I mentioned? I think there's an attempted conversion of the female of that group by the wife, maybe it's the one I mentioned above. I think the wife takes her as a hostage and taunts her hubby using her life.

I read this in my native language like fifteen years ago, but it was a translation from English. The library kept a bunch of books like those of Ian Flaming. This would be of the same genre, just with the added horror elements.

Hi, Novel.

When did you read this? A range of years is fine.

Any detail about the cover you remember?

David wrote: "Hi, Novel.

When did you read this? A range of years is fine.

Any detail about the cover you remember?"

Let's say from 2005 to 2013. But as I said, it was a translation into my native language (Marathi) and I got it from a library (in a small-ish city in India), and they kept books like those of Ian Flaming (I read Moonraker translated as well), so their collection might (or might not) have been of old books.

And I don't remember the cover at all, sorry

It is okay, the range of years is to put some limits on the search.

Did it seemed a current book at the time? Any mention of cellphones, laptops, modern things?

Did it name or describe the city where the company campus was located?

Heyyyy, thanks for trying

Anyway, it's Prey by Michael Crichton. And its not monsters or anything lol, it's... well, I won't spoil it for you (you can just read it on the wikipedia page if you want lol). The person that solved it called it the worst book they had ever read lol, just in case you were thinking of reading it. I know I'm gonna.

Here's a review taken from the wikipedia page:
Jim Holt, writing for The New York Times, found the book "absurd" but exciting, and said that he "kept turning the pages feverishly".

Oh, I read that book, I bought it in an airport while travelling. Describing them as vampires isn't that out of the mark, more than monsters.

Prey by Michael Crichton.