Lady of Ice and Fire

A rendezvous with a femme fatale sends Dr. George Jeffers, a top scientist at a medical bioengineering firm, off on a dangerous mission to locate a missing scientist, a quest that involves him in international intrigue.

Alexander's second novel (after God's Adamantine Fate), an international thriller with a medical hook, is done in by downright eccentric plotting and prose. Cleveland scientist George Jeffers has created an enzyme that can bring a fortune to the biotechnology firm he works for?but the enzyme and the messenger carrying it have disappeared in Amsterdam. The feds, working with the firm, send George to Boston to brief their agent; there, the nerdy scientist mistakes a young woman's name for a code word, and soon he and the mysterious, beautiful Taylor Redding have discovered a body and are being trailed by ominous men. The pair's adventures take them to Europe, where the body count rises as they loot a box stuffed with cash and encounter Nazis (old and neo) and other threats. The action is breathless and, when it turns out that all the mayhem touches upon a plot to overthrow the government of a small country, readers may find it nonsensical; there is an over-the-top character revelation as well. Alexander's prose is equally hard to take ("A lack of concentration could easily get her killed, or worse, cause her to botch the job. The first prospect she could live with, the second she could not."), making this a novel that is either too much or too little?but certainly not anything in between.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Taylor Redding is the "lady of ice and fire," a young woman consumed by a lust for adventure and by a debilitating cancer. This self-proclaimed "world's greatest female adventurer" meets up with George Jeffers, a corporate scientist whose artificial enzyme invention has been stolen while enroute to a professional conference in Europe. Taylor, who has freelanced for the CIA and others, convinces Jeffers to involve her in this matter of corporate espionage, which eventually turns into large-scale political intrigue involving Iceland and the former Soviet Union. The unlikely pair exhibit considerable derring-do, run into a slew of villains, follow a trail of scientific, financial, and other clues, and eventually save the day. A fascinating twist on modern spy/adventure fiction. Denise Perry Donavin