A smart, engrossing tale that entertainingly uses science.
A genetic algorithm intended as a cure for cancer becomes part of someone’s nefarious and deadly experiments in this techno-thriller.
After losing both parents to cancer, oncologist Dr. Juan Gutierrez devoted his life to finding a cure. While researching generations of species at the pharmaceutical company AgriMed, Juan uncovers an evolutionary pattern. From this, he derives an algorithm that he hopes will combat cancer. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Nate Carrington is investigating cases of lethal attacks by animals, such as dogs and birds. These cases are linked by the animals’ DNA evidence, which suggests some form of genetic manipulation. Nate soon determines that someone has pilfered Juan’s algorithm for experiments that ultimately include human subjects. To make matters worse, the stolen algorithm is an older, less stable version and leads to a number of people becoming infected with a life-threatening virus. One of the stricken may be Juan’s new romantic interest, Kathy O’Reilly, who happens to be a survivor of an animal attack. She and her Nevada rancher parents, Frank and Megan, are unwitting participants in an experiment that puts many in danger. Nate and Juan have little time to find the culprit and a cure before the death count among humans starts rising exponentially. Rothman’s (Perimeter, 2018, etc.) tale moves at a steady clip. Dialogue, in particular, is concise; in one scene, Juan converses with his boss over the phone and police officers in person, and the concurrent exchanges are clear and coherent. Scientific terminology is likewise comprehensible, thanks to the author supplying context or Juan simply explaining terms to an individual. While characters are dynamic, especially the O’Reillys, the most memorable is Jasper, a stray dog Frank and Megan take in. Readers know from the beginning that the hyper-intelligent canine is a lab escapee. But despite Jasper’s tie to the experiments, Rothman zeros in on his empathy and fierce loyalty, traits that make his human counterparts even more likable. In useful addenda, the author elucidates on two subjects from the narrative, genetically modified organisms and gene therapy.
A smart, engrossing tale that entertainingly uses science.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79027-123-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Danvers writes erotic melodramas about people with bizarre secret selves. A werewolf was the protagonist of his striking debut (Wilderness, 1992); this much less successful second novel features reincarnated lovers who cross paths every century. Marion Mead is a respectable middle-aged Virginia woman with two stepchildren she adores (her husband is dead). She works for the Virginia Historical Society and is also writing a novel based on a 1769 newspaper account of one Susanna Grier, who absconded from her husband Robert's plantation with a convict named Anthony. Through her research, Marion meets Raymond Lord, a rich, handsome, middle-aged bachelor with a magnificent antebellum home. Raymond appears immediately smitten with Marion (``I've been waiting for the right woman''). He offers her a journal kept by Pearl, Susanna Grier's great-granddaughter, during her 1850 voyage to Oregon to meet Frank Strickland, the man she felt destined to marry after seeing his daguerreotype. Danvers now interweaves three stories: Marion's fictional account of Susanna, Pearl's journal, and the contemporary romance between Marion and Raymond, who has both the eyes and the photographic memory she had imagined for Anthony. These coincidences don't bother her, but she does become ``deeply and inexplicably afraid'' when she finds the names of her invented characters cropping up in Pearl's journal. Challenged, Raymond comes clean: He is the latest incarnation of Anthony/Frank, just as Marion is Susanna/Pearl, and he has been waiting 143 years to tell her his story. In the closing section, Marion experiences wild mood swings as she figures out how to stand by Raymond (who is now her lover) while avoiding the grim fates of Susanna/Pearl at the hands of Anthony/Frank. A creaky narrative, a lack of feeling for historical period, and an attachment to the clichÇs of the plantation novel are the most obvious flaws of this never believable novel.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-78800-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
An impressive, contemplative, and introspective second novel by the author of Private Parts (1992). As the Great Depression dawns, Minyon Manigault, a poor, black 14-year-old, is given by her ailing grandmother to Ariadne Fleming (Mizz Addie), the elegant white madam of a whorehouse in Jamestown, S.C.—a world away, though it's only a few dusty hours by car from Minyon's home in Little Town. At first, Minyon feels like misfit: The youngest inhabitant of the house, and one of a few blacks, she is put to work as the cleaning girl. While she scrubs each crystal of the great chandelier, polishes the wooden table, dusts the Chinese vases, and changes the sheets between each gentleman's visit, she listens to ambitious Mizz Addie's game plan for turning Hazelhedge into the finest sporting house in the nation, picking up the madam's honest values (discretion and respectability) and her tips for running a sturdy business (keep things clean and proper; lay the groundwork). She hears the stories of the constant stream of ``hoes'' who flow through the house: families left behind on farms, abortions, dreams of rescue by a good man, plots, deaths. Minyon's tasks increase until she is running the show as Mizz Addie's trusted right-hand woman. She struggles to respect herself, not quite believing that whorehouse management should be her lot, until she realizes that identity is not defined solely by a person's job and that there can be beauty, dignity, and friendship in unexpected places. Hazelhedge is like a bottled miniature of the outside world, and Godwin paints it well, picking up nuances in speech and movement that lend depth to an already vivid portrait. A strong, clear story—food for thought.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-11405-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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