Readings and Ramblings

This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I have a little bit of a problem deciding what the main genre is. It is certainly science fiction, but it is also a thriller and a suspense and a mystery. Children keep disappearing in a small town and there is an epidemic of crip death too. The mother of a crib death victim is completely unconvinced that her baby died of normal crib death and starts trying to find out what is really going on. That makes the story a mystery to be solved. Once she starts making some headway in her investigations she and her family and friends find themselves in mortal danger and they start having narrow escapes. That makes it a thriller. It is also a hard book to put down. On nearly every page there is the impression that another aspect to the mystery is about to be solved or that someone is going to get wiped out. That makes it a suspense. I also found some of it amusing too, but in ways that were not intended to be that amusing. I found that in the fact that it is kind of outdated. The mystery under investigation has to do with genetic engineering and a lot of the woman's detective work involves searching computer data bases. The book was published originally in the early 1980's and, let's face it, there have been a lot of progress in both genetics and computer science since then. The quaintness of how these fields were perceived at that time kind of stands out and brings an occasional smile, but it does not in any way detract from the suspense and excitement in the story. If you like science fiction and if you like a fast paced thrilling mystery then do read this book.