Robert J. Sawyer Frameshift

Frameshift

Robert J. Sawyer

Tor, Nov 2005, $14.95

ISBN: 0765313162

In Berkley, California, French-Canadian research molecular biologist Pierre Tardivel works on the Human Genome Project even as he expects to die soon due to the probability that he suffers from terminal genetic Huntington's disease. His girlfriend psychologist Molly Bond knows Pierre cares deeply for her especially since she has limited telepathic skills. When someone attacks Pierre, Molly realizes that an unknown person hired the assailant to kill Pierre.

Both wonder why he would be the victim of an assassination attempt. Pierre does what he does best, conduct research seeking trends. He soon learns that his health insurance provider Condor has had an abnormally high number of deaths of those members with potentially expensive health costs that they would have to cover. At the same time Molly, wanting an offspring of Pierre, but unable to conceive naturally accepts the kind offer from Pierre's boss, Nobel Prize winner Burian Klimus to have an IVF impregnation. However, Burian uses the opportunity to test something different as he impregnates Molly with DNA extracted from the remains of a Neanderthal at the same time the Justice Department Agent Avi Meyer warns Pierre that his superior may be Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka infamy.

This is a reprint of an exciting action-packed medical thriller that grips the audience from the moment readers meet Pierre and never slows down until the final twist. The story line in some ways will remind the audience of Rosemary's baby except the devil is am amoral human using modern science to impregnate the innocent woman. Though the ties back to Treblinka seem forced and add nothing (Klimus can be a modern day scientist with no ethics without the concentration camp r sum ), readers will finish this thriller in one exciting sitting.

Harriet Klausner