Crime Zero

Michael Cordy, Author William Morrow & Company $25 (432p) ISBN 978-0-688-15509-4

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OTHER BOOKS The Miracle Strain: A Genetic Thriller

In his second novel, Cordy revisits the genetics motif of his notable debut, The Miracle Strain, this time envisioning a chilling near future when a steely female FBI director and her sycophant virologist plot to alter human biogenetics and create a crime-free, female Utopia. In the year 2008, forensic psychologist Luke Decker, director of the behavioral sciences division of the FBI academy at Quantico, is at odds with his boss, FBI director Madeline Naylor, who believes criminals are genetically predetermined, not shaped by social conditioning. Decker is surprised to discover that his former lover, the brilliant geneticist Dr. Kathy Kerr, is now working for a California biotech lab. In collaboration with Naylor and her worshipful accomplice, Dr. Alice Prince, Kerr is conducting super-secret research to alter the genomes of males in hopes of curtailing their inborn violent tendencies. When Kerr is told that her theories have been implemented already, in a covert study in which prisoners were subjected to a lethal early strain of her genetic magic bullet, she realizes she's being used. Although the furtive trial caused many prisoners' deaths, it has also drastically reduced violent crime in L.A. for close to a decade. Asked to endorse the illegal study to swing the upcoming election in favor of the first female presidential candidate, Kerr refuses to join in the coverup and is marked for death. Meanwhile, Decker visits San Quentin, where a condemned serial killer gives him some very bad news. Kerr, now romantically reunited with Decker, confirms this frightening fact with DNA testing, and suspense heightens with the worldwide dissemination of a doomsday virus. Showing more twists than a spiraling double-helix of human DNA, the plot has rough edges and loose ends, but these are minor inconsistencies in Cordy's futuristic and timely gender-bender. Agent, David Chalfont. (July)