Cat Zero

Not all readers will have the patience for the glacial pace of this workplace drama set in a prestigious London research institute. An opening teaser depicts an elderly woman’s collapse after being scratched by her cat, setting up what looks to be a thriller plot. But that’s followed by the professional and personal travails of Professor Artemis “Artie” Marshall, a clichéd scientist who happens to be both prodigiously brilliant and extremely attractive. Despite her youth, Artie has landed a position at the Heatherfields Institute, where she works in the Department of Molecular Virology studying feline leukemia viruses, an area that most researchers have abandoned. She waxes ambivalent about ending her marriage, finds herself drawn to a hunky colleague with commitment issues, and hopes that her work will be taken seriously by a reclusive expert. By the time the opening section’s death is explained, any suspense has dissipated. Rohn, a cell biologist, makes the science accessible, but the storytelling is mostly banal. (June)