FALLEN ANGELS

A thriller about a scientist’s strange genetic experiments.

A surfing accident brings together Wendy Bishop and Army 1st Lt. Brad Cummings, who initially have only a college Mandarin class in common. Unbeknownst to them, they both tragically lost their soul mates in the past. They tentatively begin a relationship, but before long, Brad leaves to visit his dying uncle, Father Morrissey, who’s punished by the church after he witnesses and reports another priest’s sexual misconduct. It’s just one of many subplots in this complex novel, but the most compelling storyline—initially separate from the others—concerns Viktor, a Russian man who runs a secretive research lab in an abandoned missile base on a remote island off the Kamchatka Peninsula. There, he and his team have created giant hybrid “unnatural predators.” Lab worker Svetlana Lapin, desperate to leave the barren island where she lives for a new existence on the Russian mainland, is his newest hire. He recruits her to participate in another of his projects—a dietary program that makes her (and her co-workers) extremely attractive; he’s also created pink pills that enhance sexual desire. Later, Brad and Wendy reunite and end up on the island, where Wendy’s mysterious “sixth sense” helps her and others navigate it. This book, which is part Tom Clancy–style adventure, part The Island of Dr. Moreau, and even part The Endless Summer, defies categorization and logic. Dittrich, a director and producer of classic surfing films, somehow guides the strange story through multiple flashbacks without wiping out; later, he presents some truly jaw-dropping incidents. But although Dittrich does manage to tie all the disparate plot strands together, the book would have benefited from a stronger edit; for example, Dittrich is clearly at home in the book’s early surfing passages, but they have very little to do with the larger narrative. Also, the storylines about monstrous animal mutations and sex parties feel like they’re in different books than the one about church-related scandal, and Wendy’s sixth sense could have been developed further.

A pleasingly bizarre but unevenly executed beach read.