Harare Review of Books

352 pages.

First published on July 12, 2022.

Logan is the son of a genius scientist, Miriam Ramsay, who caused the death of millions of people through a gene editing accident involving locusts. Logan was involved in the project, and has served time in prison. He now works as an agent for the Gene Protection Agency, set up in the US in the aftermath of the accident to stop unauthorized gene editing. The book opens with him going on what should be a routine raid on a possible dark lab, but which results in him being injured by an improvised explosive device.

What unfolds is what would be called a high-octane thriller, were it a movie. Logan gets pulled into an elaborate and dangerous plot, and races to save humanity. We follow Logan’s exciting story in the first person, and on the way, we learn a huge amount about genes and gene editing technology.

Blake Crouch, also the author of Dark Matter and of Recursion, is masterful at writing fairly near-future speculative fiction that’s full of action. In my opinion, this is the best of the three books, with deep exploration of the character’s interiority, high tension, fast-paced action, and high concepts to frame the question of the future survival of humans. While I did not agree with some of the inevitable politics in the book (the reasons we are not responding adequately to our imminent extinction, for example), this happened infrequently enough that it did not interfere with my enjoyment of the narrative.

I recommend this book for fans of action thrillers, science fiction that feels realistic, and of medical mysteries; but I think this is a book that most people will enjoy. It comes in at 352 pages, but you may find it so exciting that you may dawdle, as I did, so you don’t get to the end too quickly.

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Rated: 9/10.

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This review first appeared in The Sunday Long Read, Sunday, July 31, 2022 — Issue #352.