From Publishers Weekly
Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner McAuley (Whole Wide World) delivers a grim and gruesome near-future thriller, in which a series of devastating plagues, some natural, some manmade, have spread across the earth. In Africa, where civil wars rage out of control and an enormous Dead Zone stretches across the continent, transnational corporations have taken over several nations, using them to conduct experiments in genetic engineering that are illegal elsewhere. Nicholas Hyde, part of a team sent to investigate a massacre, discovers that the dead have been horribly mauled, their skulls smashed and their brains removed. When gun-wielding primates the size of 10-year-old children with enormous claws and teeth-the white devils-attack the team, Hyde is one of the few survivors. On returning to what passes for civilization, he's appalled to learn that the powers-that-be refuse to believe his story, insisting that the hideous creatures were merely enemy soldiers in disguise. Obsessed with a need to speak for the dead, Nicholas, who has his own dark secret to hide, sets out to uncover the truth about the white devils. Though more complex than necessary, this novel serves as a powerful warning about the sinister possibilities inherent in genetic engineering. FYI: McAuley has also won the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell awards.
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From Booklist
In a world turned upside down by Black Flu, civil wars, and escaped biotechnology, mild-mannered Nicholas Hyde is investigating a massacre in the Green Congo when his team is attacked by fierce, apelike "white devils" and narrowly escapes with a few others, including an infant survivor of the massacre. The government tries to convince him that the attackers were child soldiers painted white to frighten the superstitious. He is unconvinced, and when the infant disappears into a military hospital, he determines to get to the bottom of the white-devil business. In a bloody journey through the jungle and the "dead zone," where the plants have turned to plastic, thanks to escaped genetically engineered organisms, he discovers a web of deception and illegal genengineering that members of the government know about. Besides the governmental and corporate corruption, Nicholas uncovers some family secrets that cost him some soul-searching. McAuley serves up a frighteningly believable future, and his good grasp of thriller pacing keeps us interested.
Regina SchroederCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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