Bethany House adds another exciting suspense tale to its line up. This one is set in a research facility where everything is not as it seems.
Someone is trying to convince Lacey McHenry that she is having hallucinations. A new arrival at the lab, she is assigned to work in the frog lab. The action begins when she is attacked in the frog lab by an intruder. “Maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, he was tall, lanky, and course featured with strong brow and jaw.”
Someone is releasing the frogs from the tanks and eating the legs. The lab director is trying to hush something up. What is it that he is afraid to have known?
Our other main character is a geneticist, Dr. Cameron Reinhardt, who is a bit absent minded and is unaware of what the longevity institute he works in is doing. He is the only one who believes her.
What we have here is a tale of genetic engineering gone wrong. As the story progresses we have the story running on two different levels: the lab and a place called New Eden. Dr. Cameron Reinhardt is having flashbacks to his time in Afghanistan. Director Swain is trying to say Cameron is unbalanced. But there is something that is going on that triggers the flashbacks.
The story plot line is too on two levels. We have a rescue plot line when it is discovered that New Eden is not what it seems and the inhabitants must be saved from destruction by a person named Father to whom they proclaim affirmation.
The other plot line is control of life. Who ultimately has the right to create? Does the scientist in the lab? Should they do so and what is the outcome?
There is a lot of talk about cloning in the news today. Science is able to do many wondrous things but should they? And who is going to be able to keep ego in check? How far will you go to cover up? Who is going to control the creator? These are just some of the questions that this suspenseful tale touches on.
The story gets intense when the two worlds — New Eden and the lab — intersect in a believable way. How are the two related? This forms a story within a story that at the end when brought together offer a thrilling and violent confrontation.
The story also works as science fiction. If so, Bethany House is entering the science fiction genre as a possible market.
Escape can be sought in a book. The best looking book reviewer in Santa Monica is going to be offering you a trio of suspense books. Stay tuned in the weeks to come. Meanwhile you can contact Dane at smdp_review@yahoo.com and put your two cents in.
