A Tightly Wound Tautological Thriller

Start with a little genetic engineering, add in ancient DNA, combine it with Meteors and Molecular Biology and an insanely fanatical evangelical Christian and you've got a book you cannot put down.

Marly McKinley is a professor of science with a rather strange hobby. She collects and sells pieces of meteorites for big money on the side.

Cas Fielding is a "retired" field agent, former intelligence ops Captain who is more than a little strange. He can't seem to keep his mouth shut and, when approached by his former employer, reluctantly agrees to reengage with the agency.

Trotting the globe from Texas to Istanbul, from Mecca to Jerusalem, Cas and Marley are assaulted, kidnapped, shot,knifed and jailed in the pursuit of the truth behind a malevolent scheme.

Although The Lucifer Genome starts out a bit slowly, once it gets going, the action never stops. Racing to an unforseen conclusion, you'll find yourself looking up at the clock to find you've read all night long. ( )

The Lucifer Genome by Glen Craney and John Jeter is an interesting novel around the idea of taking old DNA from unusual sources and recreating a historic person. The novel is set in the U.S. and the middle east.

The novel starts out with a dad and daughter riding the range in Texas tracking down cattle after a storm. The discover a heifer giving birth that the dad assists with. The calf is all red. He sends the daughter home and calls his boss. He then leaves when his boss and another person arrive by helicopter. Unknown to them the daughter has came back unobserved and sees the boss and the other character kill the calf and burn it to ashes.

The next event is the theft of the seven stones in the Kaaba shrine in Mecca. This theft has the ability to start revolutions throughout the world over the theft of this religious icon to Islam. The Saudis have a deadline to return the stones before the start of the next Hajj. They contact the Americans for help in finding the thief and in returning the seven stones.

The Americans can't appear to be involved in the case, so they dump the case to a government contractor who brings in a retired government spy who had successfully infiltrated the Saudi opposition many years earlier.

This starts the chase to find out what is happened and where the stones are. Cas Fielding, the retired spy, is a character who has seemed to have lost his mind and acts in a strange fashion. He appears to stumble and bumble his way through the events of the novel. He involves a PHd in old meteors in the search. The theft of the stones turns out to be a small part of the story. The story revolves around the events necessary to start the rapture or the end of the world according to the bible. The main villain is the rancher who burned the calf at the start of the story. The story has enough twists and turns to the plot to keep you interested. The only bad part was the exaggeration of the Cas Fielding character. At times, his bumbling, stumbling, and weird actions detracted from the story, but at times they added to the story. A little toning down of this character would help the story. ( )