Author Description

An intriguing but highly uneven bio-medico-horror thriller--starting strong with DNA-research scares, then drifting into poorly paced flashbacks, and winding up in hysterical, murky mad-scientist melodrama. Peter McKusick, M.D. and Ph.D., is doing interferon research at the half-academic/half-commercial research lab on the Harvard U. campus circa 1980; he lives with three-year-old daughter Kitty--apparently the offspring of McKusick's affair with anthropologist Kathleen, who was killed in an accident when they were both doing research in Colombia. (Kitty resembles Kathleen in amazing detail.) And when Kitty starts to become mysteriously ill, the local anti-Harvard forces (who have always protested about the dangers of DNA research) claim that she has picked up a nasty bug in her father's lab. [excerpted from [Kirkus Review][1]] William Patrick began his career at Little, Brown, then moved to Harvard University Press, where he acquired and edited works by the likes of Edward O. Wilson and Jane Goodall. While working at Harvard he wrote Spirals (Houghton), a novel set in Cambridge during the early days of cloning and recombinant DNA research. [Wikipedia] This is Edward O. Wilson's reference to the book and of the episode on which the book is based: "Some species of ants have adapted very well to even the most disturbed habitats. Most cities in the tropics are homes to “tramp species,” forms that have been carried worldwide by human commerce. The little myrmicine Tetramorium simillimum is equally likely to turn up in an alley in Alexandria or on a beach in Tahiti. “Crazy ants” (Paratrechina longicornis) swarm under debris in vacant lots; colonies of the tiny dolichoderine Tapinoma melanocephalum nest in abandoned plumbing, dead plant stems, and even soiled clothing. Pharaoh’s ants (Monomorium pharaonis) are worldwide household pests. Their vast, multi-queened colonies thrive in wall spaces and detritus. In hospitals they often visit soiled bandages and track pathogenic microbes onto clean dressings and food. A notorious colony occupied the entire Biological Laboratories of Harvard University during the 1960s and 1970s. An extermination campaign was finally undertaken when workers were discovered carrying radioactive chemicals from culture dishes into the surrounding walls. (The incident was made the basis of the melodramatic scientific novel Spirals, by William Patrick, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983.)" [Edward O. Wilson in The Ants, chapter 1]. [1]: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/william-patrick-2/spirals-2/ "Kirkus Review"