Kevin Guilfoile, Cast of Shadows

Kevin Guilfoile, Cast of Shadows - In Chicago, fertility expert Dr. Davis Moore mourns the brutal rape and murder of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Anna Kat. He finds no closure when the police fail to break the case, symbolized by returning his child's stuff to him. However, amongst Anna Kat's items is an inadvertently left vial of sperm that Davis knows must have come from the culprit. Though once ethical, Davis breaks the law by using the DNA of a live person to impregnate Martha Finn so that her child would provide the visage of his daughter's killer.

A few years later Davis' depressed wife has committed suicide while he uses software to see what the cloned child Justin will look like as an adult. He also informs his peer Joan Burton that he broke the law by using a live person's DNA. She joins him as they follow clues that lead to a Windy City serial killer, the Wicker Man, but no proof that Anna Kat is one of his victims, though Justin feels an affinity to this sociopath.

This exhilarating medical thriller grips the audience who will wonder if Davis is looking at the face of his daughter's killer when he stares at Justin and whether he created a chip off the old block in a Frankenstein way. The storyline is action-packed, but has several subplots that add suspense but seem like unnecessary detours that husk the reader away from the prime theme. Still, Kevin Guilfoile cooks up an extremely exciting tale with several intriguing moral questions that would make even the Kansas AG pause before demanding information.

Harriet Klausner