Mark of the Beast
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Mark of the Beast: A searing medical thriller by Adolphus A. Anekwe, a renowned doctor, about the ramifications of isolating a gene that causes violent behavior
Dr. Regina Dickerson is a Catholic physician in San Diego who has discovered that there is a certain genetic marker that indicates the carrier is prone to psychotic violence. Working on blood from prison inmates, her theory begins to prove itself time and again with violent offenders. The variety of crimes is diverse: one couple murders their children for organ money, another man kidnaps young girls to seduce and kill them, yet another has a penchant for cyanide.
As Dickerson's work begins to show results and catches the attention of the media, people begin to fear that witch hunts and Spanish Inquisition–style mayhem will result if forcible testing is carried out. Meanwhile, a race begins to find a cure. With science and religion at odds, Dickerson must find her own answers while trying to escape those who want to put an end to her inflammatory research.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anekwe's didactic first novel, a medical thriller, fails to deliver on the promise of its provocative premise. When Dr. Regina Dickerson, a top research scientist at the University of California, La Jolla Medical School, discovers a violence-inducing identifying genetic trait in the DNA of convicted murderers, further experiments on vicious offenders yield a startling discovery: HLA B locus may be linked to the fabled biblical "number of the Beast" associated with people devoted to Satan. Dickerson's work sparks media outrage and political controversy, and exposes a drab conspiracy of evildoers determined to silence her. Will Dickerson, a prophet of predestination, survive? Alas, few readers will care. Anekwe, an M.D. and professor at Indiana University Northwest Medical Center, knows his science, but pedestrian prose and predictable plot developments, on top of the book's moralistically rigid approach, will limit its appeal largely to those who share the religious faith the author evinces in his acknowledgments.