McDowell's third novel is set in the near future when biotechnology is stretching the limits of ethics and legality. Three people: a man, a woman, and a young child, are caught up in a heavily funded project based on the theories of the brilliant geneticist, Vladimir Androvich, which involve gene-editing, bio-engineering, and selective breeding. While the geneticist is only interested in the benefits to humanity, bio-research firms, Big Pharm, military organizations, governments, and black marketeers see the project as a way to become fabulously wealthy and powerful.
The subjects become suspicious that they are not being told everything about the Project. When the results are successful, their lives are torn apart as the various groups vie for the technology and the child.
In the midst of kidnappings, payoffs, political intrigue, underground mayhem, and murder, the test subjects and project staff must wrestle with the ethical and legal dilemmas they have unleashed upon the world, decide what to do with the data and the lives that have been destroyed—and find a way to save the child.
Other books by Markus McDowell
Markus McDowell is an author & editor of fiction and nonfiction in multiple genres. He is the author of To and Fro Upon the Earth: A Novel, Mortals As They Walk, Onesimus: A Novel of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and his first short story collection, The Sky Over Chaos, as well as a number of nonfiction books in law, theology, and literature in the ancient world. He lives on a 40' yacht in Southern California and travels frequently, exploring new lands and new meeting people. He has a fondness for scotch whisky, Cuban cigars, and reading everything he can get his hands on.
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