Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

It's awfully tough to follow success. Sawyer, a skilled writer of SF techno-thrillers whose The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula for Best Novel, stumbles in his attempt. After learning that he has a 50/50 chance of carrying the deadly gene for Huntington's Disease, brilliant French-Canadian geneticist Pierre Tardivel dedicates his life to working on the Human Genome Project. An assault by a knife-wielding skinhead sets Pierre off on an investigation that uncovers evidence that his insurance company is secretly collecting DNA samples from its clients, and that, in order to save money, those whose genes reveal any medical disorders are murdered. At the same time, Pierre and his wife, Molly, become involved in the U.S. Justice Department's hunt for a Nazi death camp guard. Sawyer seems to have taken on more than he can handle here. Plot twists are clearly telegraphed, and two sideplots--the first involving a genetic "frameshift" (the source of Molly's telepathic abilities) and a second involving the discovery that their daughter, conceived through in vitro fertilization, is a cloned Neanderthal--are left largely unexplored. The novel's climax--an action sequence involving the villain's attempted rooftop escape by helicopter--is just plain silly. Sawyer's unflinchingly honest and powerful portrait of Pierre, however, who is slowly overwhelmed by the disease he hopes to conquer, almost makes up for the awkward plotting. Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

A Nebula Award winner and Hugo Award nominee, Sawyer has created a gripping medical sf thriller. Pierre Tardivel, a French Canadian geneticist, works on identifying junk DNA for the Human Genome Project. At risk for contracting Huntington's chorea, Tardivel drives himself to succeed in a race against time to complete his research. Skillfully interwoven is the misidentification of John Demjanjuk as the Treblinka death camp's Ivan the Terrible, the cloning of Neanderthal genes, and a greedy insurance company that illegally and clandestinely takes DNA samples from its policy owners and kills high-risk clients before it has to pay out large claims. Highly recommended for sf collections.Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

That a Nobel laureate who has successfully extracted a Neanderthal's DNA from its skeleton might not be an ideal sperm donor doesn't occur to Molly and her geneticist husband, Pierre, until young Amanda's looks and actions start to seem unusual. Sawyer twines this plot strand with two others: the expected development of heritable Huntington's disease in Pierre (the reason he and Molly were attempting in vitro fertilization) and the machinations of an insurance company whose clients with high-cost medical problems have also suffered a high rate of homicide. Behind those murders may be a brutal former concentration camp guard, but who among several likely candidates is actually he proves hard to ascertain. Pierre's symptoms increasingly manifest themselves as award-winning sf scribe Sawyer's unputdownable thriller proceeds to a violent conclusion. (Reviewed April 15, 1997)031286325XWilliam Beatty From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.