Spirals

by William Patrick

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395339529
• ISBN13: 9780395339527
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A superb story

Spirals is an extraordinary book - one of my favourite works of fiction - whose relevance and validity have increased in the years since it was first published. It manages the supreme trick of combining seamlessly a riveting story with real hard science. Despite its qualities, the book is virtually unknown. The story deals with Dr. Peter McKusick, a researcher in a commercial gene lab. He's a loner, whose only significant companion is his 3 year-old daughter Kitty. We learn that his adored wife was killed in a car crash. The laboratory is under pressure from protest groups concerned that a recombinant DNA facility is situated next door to an infant school. Demands are made for the closure of the lab before unnamed horrors are unleashed on the populace. Then, one morning, McKusick's daughter falls ill... The storyline at this point is handled with extreme skill. Although the reader is almost encouraged by events to believe that the plot is about to drift into a hackneyed medical shocker scenario, there are odd incidents which add to the suspicion that something far stranger than an escaped virus is at work here. Why are McKusick's parents-in-law unaware of the existence of their grandchild? Why does he act so bizarrely when Kitty becomes sick? I consider it a crime that this book is not more widely read. Perhaps its ultimate salvation would be to be made into a film, into which I believe it would translate very well.