A timely, winning adventure that brings up serious questions about technology and medical research.
Kaczmarowski’s (Moon Rising, 2014) scientific thriller pits a medical researcher against the government.
Dr. Jane Dixon is a San Francisco Bay Area scientist studying animal intelligence. She conducts experiments on both a rat and a dog to see whether exposure to a particular virus will give them humanlike intelligence and other skills, such as the ability to use tools. Jane is struggling with other issues at work, however, such as dwindling research funding and a boss who’s romantically interested in her. On the homefront, she has an autistic son named Robbie, and she’s desperately trying to hold on to her latest nanny. After dark, her laboratory comes alive in an astonishing manner when the rat (suitably named Einstein) lets himself out of his cage to mix things up a bit. It turns out that Jane’s virus has enabled Einstein to communicate—not by speaking, but by typing into a smartphone. Bear, the dog, isn’t a great typist, but he’s also become an intelligent, sentient being. The animals’ eyes glow an electric blue—a haunting image that becomes a hallmark of infected creatures throughout the novel. As Jane realizes the significance of what she’s done—including the fact that the virus has become communicable—she wonders about its potential to help her son and others with autism. Unsurprisingly, the Centers for Disease Control takes an interest in her work and demands that the program be shut down. However, Jane can’t give up the hope of a cure for her son and plans to escape to Canada with Robbie, Einstein, and Bear. With government agents in pursuit, she makes a decision that will affect not just her son, but potentially all life on Earth. Over the course of the novel, Jane’s actions convincingly come across as earnest rather than foolhardy, and Kaczmarowski does a deft job of making all the characters sympathetic, which is no small feat when the cast includes both humans and animals. The novel’s focus on the desire for scientific advancement despite possible dire consequences is reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s work, and Jane’s run from the government has a classic adventure feel that’s equally satisfying. Overall, Kaczmarowski has written a smart, exciting thriller that draws on enough contemporary anxieties to make it an entertaining and chilling ride.
A timely, winning adventure that brings up serious questions about technology and medical research.Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990410928
Page Count: 380
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
