Chiller

A promising first novel about cryonics (the freezing of human bodies for potential revival in the future), this science-based thriller set in contemporary Southern California challenges the idea that death as we know it is final. Alex Cowell and Susan Hagerty, respectively general manager and researcher at the cryonics firm Immortality Inc., successfully revive a cryonically preserved dog with the use of transglycerols, which prevent individual cell destruction during the freezing process. Their feat attracts the skeptical attention of the media, arouses the hidebound prejudices of Hagerty's employers at the university hospital on whose faculty she sits, inflames the self-righteous anger of Orange County preacher Carl Montana and inspires a holy crusade by the mysterious George, an unlikely but believable combination of religious nut, computer whiz and serial killer. Thanks to an unholly alliance between George and the Reverend Montana, sabotage and murder haunt Hagerty, Cowell and his girlfriend Kathryn Sheffield, until Immortality Inc.'s future--and their own--is on the line. Written in an expansive, easygoing style that fleshes out each character but sometimes blunts the narrative drive, the novel has snappy dialogue, believable science and the required plot twist that will prompt readers to exclaim, ``Of course!'' Blake does a good job of tying everything together, as well as putting forward the intriguing proposition that people are just as afraid of those who have the power to give life as they are of those who take it away. (July)