Threshold

To help a former girlfriend investigate her father's death, young geneticist Jeremy Ross infiltrates a mysterious genetic research center in South Carolina and uncovers high-level government intrigue and a deadly project involving the genetic mapping of human DNA

"Do you know what we call a man with a perfect genome?" asks the villain of Mezrich's first novel. "We call that man God." Yes, yet another mad scientist is on the loose, but that cliche and the sketchiness of other characters here don't obscure the author's clever handling of the issues raised by his topical theme of genetic engineering, or his impressively intricate plotting. Jeremy Ross, a brilliant fourth-year medical student, finds himself investigating the mysterious death of the U.S. secretary of defense at the behest of the deceased's daughter, Robin Kelly, Jeremy's former lover. Jeremy's search leads him to Tucsome, a classified research center in South Carolina. There, scientists have found a way to accelerate the genetic mapping of human DNA, with deadly implications. Jeremy soon learns of massive cover-ups, several murders and billions of dollars funneled into a project that threatens human life as we know it. This potboiling stew of thriller throwaways tastes of Crichton and Cook, though without the former's cool control or the latter's antic energy. Mezrich writes fast-moving prose that will hook readers, and he knows how to make science suspenseful. But an absurdly melodramatic climax featuring the hero and heroine, that mad scientist, ravenous wolves and assault by gun, test tube, baseball bat and liquid nitrogen finally marks Mezrich, who's in his mid-20s, as a writer of some talent but, as yet, of only limited craft. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour; foreign rights sold to Japan, Spain, Holland, Germany and Bulgaria; U.K., translation, first serial, dramatic rights: Garon-Brooke.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mezrich makes a bid for Grisham-level success with this flimsy thriller featuring a mad scientist bent on creating a master race--though cardboard characters and a predictable plot keep getting in his way. Jeremy Ross is happily immersed in the chaotic life of a fourth-year medical student at New York City Hospital on the night that Robin Kelly, a former girlfriend when the two were at Dartmouth, drops into the emergency room to ask for his help. Robin--tearful, terrified, yet lovely as ever--confides to Jeremy her suspicion that the recent death of her father, Secretary of Defense Warren T. Walker, was the result of foul play. She wants Jeremy to steal a copy of her father's death certificate and tell her what he thinks. Dazzled by Robin's beauty, the 24-year-old genetics enthusiast performs as asked--and what he finds makes him wonder whether someone could have introduced a deadly virus into Walker's cells. Jeremy's concern--along with evidence that Robin is indeed being threatened with murder--leads him to the Tucsome Project for Genetic Research, a facility funded largely by the Defense Department, and one that Walker was known to have visited. Enlisting as an intern at the Project, Jeremy investigates the recent death of a researcher with whom Walker had had contact; snoops into the secret activities of charismatic lab director and genetics genius Jason Waters; and wonders about the horrifically disabled children under study at the facility's adjoining hospital. It's hardly surprising that Walker's death turns out to have been genetically engineered--but the murder of a government official is only the tip of the iceberg here, as Jeremy learns while fighting his own nightmares and trying to protect his former love. TV-level melodrama on a big-screen budget. (First printing of 100,000; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Secretary of Defense Walker dies before he can announce dramatic budget cuts. Believing that he was murdered, his daughter, Robin, asks former boyfriend Jeremy Ross for help. Jeremy, a fourth-year medical student with an extraordinary grounding in genetics and other sciences, follows evidence to a top-secret, government-funded genetic research project called Threshold, located in South Carolina. Jeremy infiltrates the operation, while Robin attempts to get the CIA involved. With their lives in danger at every moment, the pair evades the deadly and ubiquitous U.S. Special Security Operations agents to stop the release of genetic matter that could alter the human race forever. Unfortunately, the suspension-of-disbelief "threshold" is too high in this unevenly written first novel. Most libraries can pass.?V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.