The first page of The Genesis Flaw opens with the image of a man about to hang himself. His swinging legs cast a shadow like a pendulum across the action that follows, and the spectre of death underscores the action packed plot that follows. Usually I grit my teeth at the words THRILLER. But happily in the case of The Genesis Flaw, I
fell in love with Serena Swift, the super sleuth, with her flashing hazel eyes, plunging cleavage and all. She's got, in the words of AC/DC, balls. Balls of steel really, because she takes on the CEO of Gene-Asis, the evil global conglomerate responsible for genetically modified foods, seeds and much more sinister deeds.
Thrillers only thrill if the bad guys are really bad and Al Bukowski is worse than that, he is the smiling fascist, espousing Christian
morals while he crushes dissent underfoot with a bleached toothed grimace. Much of the tension of The Genesis Flaw pivots on the
uncomfortable attraction between Serena and Al, and the necessary seduction the heroine deploys to gain access to the company's grim secrets.Serena's methods are both ancient (low cut black dress) and modern (computer hacking, high tech key loggers disguised as earrings)Her sense of purpose is tested many times,but as the plot thickens her courage rises and I found myself burning through the pages at 2am to see if my heroine could kick Al Bukowski's
arse, and, of course,save the day.
Ahh, dirty, controlling, meticulously groomed and resolutely evil Al Bukowski. He's nothing like the libertine poet that made this name famous. But he needs a bombastic name to fit his nature. I think he might be my favourite aspect of this tale, because anti-heroes are
complex beasts. It takes a clever author to make a repulsive character oddly
compelling and L.A.Larkin does just that.Like the menacing actor Christian Bale or, more creepily,Christopher Walken, she paints Bukowski as morbidly sexy,drunk on his own power and sporting a
satanic set of ink black eyes with unfathomably deep pupils. The good guy in this battle of wills is John Flynn,computer hacker and
childhood crush of Serena Swift.By comparison, Flynn's laconic good manners and lack of sexual aggression seem positively insipid next to the fuming, snarling, oily, bespoke suited charms of Al Bukowski. Poor Flynn has to go through hell and high water before he gets to kiss his girl (I won't say when), whereas Al seems to be searing a hole through her wrap dress from first sighting. Like the reader, Serena develops a perverse love/hate relationship with her nemesis and accepts the
danger of her investigative task with a certain relish of duality. Yet aside from this distorted anti-romance, by far the most engaging aspect
of The Genesis Flaw is the subject of genetic modification. The author has clearly done deep research and her revelations are chilling. Few people in the twenty first century know what they are really eating, and if they did, they might be growing their own. In this story,the question is whether genetically modified foods are the cause of a global pandemic.The menace of science gone mad is very,very real.
By the final page I had to ask myself how far I would go to expose the sins of BP or Nestle or Roche and it made me love this novel more, less for its obvious escapism and more for its moral outrage. Gene-Asis conduct genetic experiments and release foods and crop seeds that spread disease and create birth defects.How many corporations can you name that deploy similar ethics to drive billion dollar profits? More than a dozen spring to my mind. So maybe this book is a beach read, or maybe it's hot option material for Tom Cruise or perhaps, better still, it's a call to action for anyone who bites into a very large red apple and wonders if super foods are in fact the devil's work.