Oaths and Miracles -

Nancy Kress

Forge

1996

300 páginas

10h 0m

ISBN-10: 0312859619

The widow of a murdered scientist and an unstable FBI agent join forces on a trail of science and death that leads them from a biotech company to a paramilitary splinter group to a religious commune.The mysterious deaths of a showgirl in Las Vegas and a scientist in Boston lead FBI agent Robert Cavanaugh into a deadly investigation into the links between the Mafia and a biotech company specializing in recombinant DNA research.

[Amazon.com Review] Judy O'Brien Kozinski has no idea what she'll find as she investigates the death of her husband. A genetic scientist, he was slain for his refusal to work for a biotech company of dubious intentions controlled by the mob. As she fights for answers in the offices of the FBI, witnesses the mass execution of a religious cult, and uncovers the devious motive of the biotech firm--producing customized viruses that could be spread like a cold--she realizes the power and potential of herself as an individual. Her transformation, from unhappy and insecure widow to confident, sleek sleuth is almost as Herculean as her success at exposing this global threat.

[From Publishers Weekly] The potential hazards and social consequences of genetic engineering provide the matrix for this provocative thriller by Kress, author of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction novels. Boston-area freelance journalist Judy O'Brien Kozinski is devastated by the murder of her husband, Ben, an eminent geneticist. Determined to find his killers, despite her rage at discovering that he'd been having an affair, Judy stays one step ahead of edgy, dogged FBI detective Robert Cavanaugh, a lovelorn agent who obsessively faxes and e-mails letters to his estranged wife. The trail leads to a New Jersey biotechnology firm with which Ben had interviewed. The firm turns out not only to have mob connections but also to have been secretly working on an airborne killer virus that can be customized to infect specific individuals. Also involved is an apocalyptic religious cult in upstate New York, the Soldiers of the Divine Covenant, whose members practice animal sacrifice. The plot ultimately is far-fetched, but Kress, a witty and engaging writer, is in lucid command of key principles of, and advances in, molecular biology. She creates chilling suspense as twisty as a DNA double helix. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

[From Booklist] Award-winning sf writer Kress makes the transition to the scientifically based contemporary thriller with admirable success. Her effort opens with FBI agent Robert Kavanaugh thinking that the murders of a showgirl in Las Vegas and a scientist in Boston are connected. He quickly suspects that they are also connected to a Mafia-funded effort at DNA research, but in classic thriller fashion, he is unable to convince his superiors and must play a lone hand against a conspiracy in which the possibility of Mafia-developed biological weapons is only one element. The ensuing action is fast and furious, and the average reader will be sweating out Kavanaugh's quest for the better part of two hundred pages before an ending mercifully more happy than not. Kress is a master of characterization and every other skill needed to make hers a much-above-average thriller. Roland Green

[Review] FBI agent thinks he's on to a plot involving biological weapons, but he can't seem to make the pieces of his investigation connect. All he has are seemingly unconnected murders, the possible involvement of a secluded group of peaceful religious observers, and a newly widowed, determined woman who herself faces death as she decides to conduct her own investigation and comes perilously close to the truth. Gripping moments prove Kress can create a hard-to-put-down thriller separate from her usual science fiction worlds. -- Midwest Book Review.