Krishna
We have reviewed some books by this author earlier. Among other things this includes 77 Shadow Street, Intensity and What The Night Knows
The premise is interesting. This is Victor Frankenstein, calling himself now Victor Helios and perfecting the crude method of creating life that he used in Mary Shelly’s novel – now he has state of the art lab where he can manufacture and design DNAs. The first one he created, the nameless monster, is now calling himself Deucalian. Now, both of them have lived centuries with the help of science in Victor’s case and nature in the case of Deucalian. You learn all these of course in the course of the book and this forms the first book in a long series. Let us simply review this as it stands.
Deucalian has nightmares daily. They do not frighten him in the least. He is atop the Himalayas, in a Buddhist monastery, away from civilization. When a friend calls, he agrees to return to the States and Nesbo, a monk and a friend, tattoos his scarred side of the face so that the disfigurement is not visible at a casual glance.
Meanwhile we meet Carsen, a tough police officer who teams up with Michael Maddison. We also get to know that they are assigned to the case of a girl whose body was found in the water, minus her hands. We meet Roy Pribeaux who seem to be collecting body parts and meets a girl who is nondescript otherwise but with stunning eyes. He makes her acquaintance.
We learn that the killer has collected not just external (hands, feet) but also internal (liver, heart) organs from previous murders.
Meanwhile an autistic man – just made artificially, wants to connect with the brother of Carsen who is also autistic but normally born.
The creator of these creatures is Victor who has created his own mate Erica IV (The first three were not satisfactory).
Meanwhile one of his creations killed another, violating the principle and Victor Helios is astounded. It should not have been possible. The killed one had two hearts and two livers, like all improved humanity that Victor created recently. The detective meets Deucalian, who lets her know that he too is one of the created creatures, from stolen organs from the graveyard.
We learn that Victor Helios has got at least one clone – a Catholic priest in a very big church, who provides absolution to sins of powerful people – and a gateway to information for Victor.
Suddenly, the collector of beautiful organs, Roy, is made paralytic by an entirely new character, a cop called Jonathan Harker who was born in Hands of Mercy, Victor’s lab that makes superior people. Annoying, but something that Dean does from time to time. It interrupts the smooth flow of the story.
There are also nice touches where Erika realizes that the super beings have been programmed with a spy in their head that alerts Victor the moment they have rebellious thoughts against him. So she ignores the admonition from the TV to ‘Kill Him’.
The autistic Randall manages to gain courage to leave the building, illegally.
Meanwhile Jonathan manages to get his neighbour girl kidnapped and sedated and he prepares to operate on her to find out the ‘missing organ’ that produces happiness in ‘ordinary humans’. We also learn that there is something that is moving within him and he thinks it is because he is about to split in two (Two Jonathans, like an Ameba does.)
The story goes where Jonathan goes and gets asylum with the priest and how both delude Victor who comes visiting is interesting. Jonathan goes to his psychiatrist to kill her next, and the thing that moves within him is like a screaming face and the reverend thinks it is not what Jonathan expects it to be.
The book wanders off after each character. Jonathan Hankell with his mysterious growth that is revealed at the end, Randall Six in terrified search of Carson’s brother, and Victor himself in his arrogant superiority. When you see all of them escaping or otherwise running away towards the end of the book, you realize that this is not a standalone tale and nothing is resolved in this book. Which is a bit disappointing.
Not a bad story, but not one of his greatest either.
5/10
– – Krishna (November 2019)