Double Helix

by Nancy Parker

With an assist from the Human Genome Project, Vikon Corporation, a bioengineering company on the island of Grenada in the Eastern Caribbean, has deciphered the key in our DNA to human aging - literally the cure for everything. Now operating beyond all US government and industry regulation, Vikon, headed by eugenicist Anthony Beecher, is about to transform a select group of humans into something altogether new - Homo Sapiens Immortalis. And no one can stop him. High-tech journalist Kate Lipton wades into this high-stakes thicket unwittingly amid rumors of a group of AIDS sufferers who have disappeared after traveling to Grenada in search of a miracle cure. She soon learns Anthony Beecher will stop at nothing to derail her investigation and prevent her exposing Vikon's activities; for Beecher, the stakes are financially and philosophically stratospheric. Anchored off Vikon's compound, Kate and partner Jack Sullivan discover Vikon's yacht, the Chimera, ferrying a stream of Fortune-500 types between the airport and Vikon's Grenadian lab. With Vikon security closing in and answers still elusive, she must finally resort to high-tech system hacking to uncover the truth. If the key to human immortality is unravelled, can and should that genie be put back in its bottle? Who should receive the immortality treatment, and who should decide? DOUBLE HELIX grapples with thorny questions, issues of great relevance to twenty-first century humankind in the age of genetic discovery. For in truth, the key to our species immortality may well be at hand.

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2000

Reviews

[Ami Kothari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly written, Double Helix follows a news reporter who ventures into dark waters of a multimillion dollar corporation playing with genetics. They claim to have found the secret to aging via the human genome and are able to cure any disease known to man. But this knowledge is shrouded in disturbing plans to eliminate homo sapiens and create a highly intelligent longer living (practically immortal) human species known as homo sapiens inmortalis. No one has the right to play God. No matter how rich and intelligent they may be. The novel is a beacon for those who love a good detective story, genetics, and sailing. Parker does an exceptional job in keeping your interest. She smoothly intertwines suspense, curiosity, romance, adventure, and human ethics into a masterpiece of a novel. I was a bit dissatisfied with her ending but that wasn't too much of a bother. It's a relatively long book so I was glad to have reached the end. I would definitely read it again and recommend to anyone that doesn't mind getting lost in the world of genetics, sailing, and the stubbornness of news reporters.

[Camber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I HATED this book! I had to read it for English 102 and was bored the whole way through. DON'T READ