Leviathan

Cast from the mold of Michael Crichton's cautionary tales about scientific excess but given a Christian glaze, this novel pits one Jackson Connor--whose initials aren't incidental--against a monster created through genetic manipulation. ``Electromagnetic chromosomal'' means have allowed Dr. Peter Frank to turn a Komodo dragon's DNA into that of a ``Leviathan,'' grown by Stygian Enterprises to sell to the U.S. government as a weapon of war. Things get out of control, allowing Huggins (The Reckoning) to express a virulent disdain for the feds and an only slightly more tempered lack of regard for scientific research. Salvation comes at the hands of Connor, an electrician employed by Stygian on the arctic island where Leviathan is based; he is aided in the good fight by Thor Magnusson, a scholarly giant of a priest hiding from the forces of evil. Huggins is a far from subtle writer, given to preaching and melodrama (``what we have accomplished in this cavern may very well have altered the nature of life as we know it,'' intones one character), but once the action gets up to steam, he takes readers on a merry, entertaining ride. Whether the book, drenched in apocalyptic Christian theology, will cross over to a secular readership remains to be seen, however. (Oct.)