A wish list book received as a Christmas present!

When his boss sends him to Europe to meet with a new client, patent attorney Hank Hannah see a lucrative opportunity in the new field of genetic engineering. But when his client rushes their procedure to market before they fully understand all the consequences, things get messy. Faced with a crisis of sick children and significant concern from the highest levels of the US Government, Hannah need to get very creative to keep his clients from being locked in prison for a long time.

This book is an enjoyable, reasonably paced legal thriller that explores the potential legal and political ramifications of genetic engineering on scale that would allow parents to select the traits they wished to see in their children. From fears that ambitious strongmen might try to use this technology to build a "master race", to concerns about the economic and environmental impact that improved longevity might present, there are many reasons that the status quo might be threatened by such advances. Filled with likeable characters, this book was a joy to read, even while it explored heavier issues.

I'm bringing this to today's BC-in-DC get together. If no one takes it home with them, it will be available on the OBCZ shelf after the meeting.

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ResQgeek handed me this when I walked into the meet-up today. I was puzzled because I hadn't seen his review of the book (usually I can predict the books he will bring that I will want to snag for myself). It looks decent, so I will put it on Mt TBR.

This book was passed along to me by a friend who works at the PTO and has been a patent examiner for many years, so I will defer to his opinion on the patent stuff. As for the plot and pacing, it was an interesting book because the plot was somewhat thriller-esque, but the story takes place over the course of a year and doesn't have the sense of urgency that most thrillers do. Fairly early on in the book the protagonist's superior suddenly dies under what felt like they could have been mysterious circumstances -- I expected that to lead somewhere (which in a thriller it would have) especially given some of the discussion of the uses of snake venom. But it was just a vehicle to allow the protagonist to make some changes in his professional life.

The plot was fairly well done and the characters were interesting, although some of the secondary characters felt a little flat (but then, they are secondary characters, so not as critical that they be well-rounded), for instance the journalists were too driven by the potential for a story given their personal connections to the story and the politician was what we all (especially those living in the DC area) believe most politicians to be. I tend to be a little leery of the self-published novels, but this was probably the best one I have read and the least in need of additional editing for basics such as spelling and grammar. And the author has a much better grasp of DC as a city than Dan Brown in his best-sellers, which doesn't hurt. There were a few continuity plots that jumped out to me earlier (Judy drives Hank home in the morning but they were at his house not hers; the new law partner's first name was wrong in one of the first paragraphs) but all in all that is not bad.

The science aspects of the book were explained well enough that I think I followed them and I don't know enough to nitpick about them. I liked the technique of explaining the process by discussing the framing of the patent application and I was surprised about the amount of time and work that goes into doing that. Again, science, but not a downfall for me.

The place I do have to quarrel with the author was that the behavior of Hank as a lawyer was continually in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. It helped with the flow of the story to have Hank discussing a lot of things with Judy. But one of the first things you learn in law school (besides get the money up front and always cover your anatomy) is that you DO NOT DISCUSS THE CLIENT'S BUSINESS WITH ANYONE WITHOUT THEIR EXPRESS PERMISSION. PERIOD. Hank felt some sense of guilt blabbing to his sister about some of the procedure and warned her he could get in trouble if anyone found out -- and later on justified things to himself by the health risks involved to innocent children. But he never for a single second hesitates to confide in his girlfriend Judy everything that is going on with respect to Rameau and Alexander and the patent and everything else. While he is unlikely to be caught or brought up on ethics charges for these discussions (in part because Judy keeps her mouth shut), this flies in the face of the concept of client confidentiality. I wanted to slap him so many times and quote the RPCs to him.

As a novel, pretty darn decent, and I would probably give it another star if I were not a lawyer. But the blabbing about client business really affected my view of this book.

This book is going to meet-up today.

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Dropping off in the Little Free Library at the train station.