Reviews

After three consecutive historical sagas (A Dangerous Fortune, etc.), Follett returns to the threshold of the 21st century with a provocative, well-paced and sensational biotech-thriller about the genetic manipulation of human embryos. Striving to prove that offspring genetically predisposed toward aggression can learn to sublimate their combative nature through childhood conditioning by socially responsible parents, a feisty and brilliant young university researcher, Jeannie Ferrami, develops software to identify identical twins who have been reared apart. When she stumbles across what seems to be an impossibility‘identical twins born to different mothers at separate locations on different dates, Jeannie runs into serious trouble. Pitted against her is, foremost, her own faculty mentor, Berrington Jones, a world-renowned authority on biotechnical engineering. In devious partnership with another scientist and a bigoted U.S. senator with presidential aspirations, Jones is co-founder of Genetico, a small company that pioneered biogenetic research. The trio is now in the final stages of a lucrative friendly buyout by a corporate giant‘and they don't take kindly to Jeannie's diggings. Multiples created by genetic manipulation aren't new to thrillers (e.g., Ira Levin's The Boys from Brazil), but Follett puts a clever spin on the concept. And despite entwining outlandish plot strands of biotechnical skullduggery, a neo-Nazi candidate for president, academic politics and corporate greed with a steamy romance between Jeannie and one of the twins, the novel shines with the authenticity that's Follett's trademark as it explores the Internet and the mind-boggling data banks of personal statistics maintained by insurance empires, the Pentagon and the FBI. This isn't Follett's most sophisticated novel‘it's heavy on the melodrama and on sexual violence‘but its wicked narrative energy and catchy theme will likely propel it quickly onto the charts. Major ad/promo; simultaneous Random House audio and large-print editions; author satellite tour; (Nov.)

Follet is most famous for his thrillers (e.g., Eye of the Needle, Audio Reviews, LJ 10/15/91). He has moved into other genres recently, but the present title represents a move back in the direction of the suspense thriller. After a friend is raped, Dr. Jeannie Ferrami finds certain anomalies in the apparently airtight case the police have against the chief suspect, a subject in her psychology research group. Jeannie's honest doubts about his guilt, plus the growing attraction between the two, spur her to push the search for the real rapist in spite of opposition from her university. There is tension and excitement here, though not comparable to Follett's earlier work, and the story flows smoothly enough through the lips of narrator Diane Venora. Too many of the plot advances are based on coincidence and sudden insight, however. Recommended for public libraries.‘Gordon Cheatham, U.S. Army Lib. Div., Alexandria, Va.