VIRAVAX

Former operative Rico Toledo begins to suspect that his former partner has been programmed for assassination and that he himself may have already been permanently altered by the creation of viruses at the laboratory Viravax. 75,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.

Ransom, sometime collaborator with the late Frank Herbert ( The Ascension Factor ) and author of one previous solo novel ( Jaguar ), here offers a near-future thriller set against a background of deadly biological warfare. In 2105, in the newly formed Central American country of Costa Brava, the ViraVax company conducts top-secret genetic experiments, developing tailored retroviruses for various clandestine purposes--most importantly (and most secretly) the fanatical plans of its founder, Joshua Casey. Casey's father is the messianic Master behind a nouveau religious sect, the Children of Eden, and Casey plots to use ViraVax's viruses to remake the world in the sect's utopian image, no matter who gets hurt in the process. But when Casey's equally fanatical chief researcher, Dajaj Mishwe, uses a telltale virus to eliminate an employee who learned too much, ViraVax attracts the attention of the dead man's best friend, former Agency operative Colonel Rico Toledo, who begins to unravel the company's dangerous secrets. The story starts off with a bang, and Casey's schemes are suitably horrifying, but the narrative loses its momentum very quickly, only recovering toward the end. In between, the book limps through various subplots, showing little sense of direction.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Near-future thriller about genetic engineering, from an author best known for his science-fiction collaborations with the late Frank Herbert (The Ascension Factor, 1988, etc.). In 2015, the Central American republic of Costa Brava is host to ViraVax, a genetic research facility renowned for its vaccines. ViraVax is run by the Children of Eden, fundamentalist fanatics dedicated to restoring the crumbling ecology of planet Earth. Unknown to all but the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which keeps close tabs on the vast, mostly underground, virtually impregnable facility, ViraVax has conspired with Costa Brava's president to infect the population with viruses that have drastically cut the local birthrate; moreover, of those born, the majority suffer from Down's syndrome--a convenient and tractable supply of labor or experimental subjects for ViraVax. To neutralize the DIA's main operative, Colonel Rico Toledo, ViraVax has infected him with a virus that keeps him permanently simmering with rage and lust, and prompts him to heavy drinking. Worst of all, in the deepest, hidden levels of ViraVax lurks Dajaj Mishwe, a brilliant but totally insane researcher who has cloned two unwitting Americans, one of them Toledo; Mishwe intends for the clones, Sonja and Harry, to breed and inherit the Earth after he kills everyone else off with a virus that destroys its victims in minutes. Soundly constructed, with solid prose and realistic dialogue, but top heavy with exposition and largely undramatic; what's lacking is propellant. Still, fans of the Herbert-Ransom books will certainly want to investigate. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.