Nov 30, 2015 01:16 PM
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James Patterson is a very good writer of thrillers, and it was with this thought in mind that I picked up his above book written by him c. 1998. In this book, written with science fiction scenarios that seemed to be quite within reach in the next 10-20 years, Patterson writes a lovingly told story of a beautiful and intelligent veterinarian doctor Frannie O, Niall who gets involved in a horrible saga of cover-ups when she accidentally sees a child with wings who is flying.
Her life gets completely overturned when she and the girl, Max, meet for the first time. The girl is a genetically engineered chimera of human and bird with superb intelligence and physical power way ahead of her size. Only 11-12 years old, she recounts how a closely guarded secret "School" in the woods in Colorado has brought her up so far with other children with similar abilities. She speaks about many children being killed because the "product" did not turn out as expected.(She uses the words "put to sleep").
Assisting Frannie is a wayward but smart FBI agent who was earlier on this investigation but was removed and relocated; the agent has returned to this site unauthorized. He even changed his name from Tom to Kit. As can be expected, the agent and the doctor fall for each other as they jointly endeavour to look after the girl, find the school, rescue her other friends and catch the bad people.
As the author has said, this is a scenario well within the domain of genetic engineering at a later date. And that is what makes the book so interesting and good.
