Julian Solo

The eponymous hero of this gothic-like mystery is a modern variant of mad scientist, an ambitious and attractive psychobiologist doing research in a psychiatric hospital on Roosevelt Island. The story begins, however, after Solo's death, and is narrated by his accused killer, his stepson Mathew Wylie, whose mother, recently married to Solo, is also dead, or in a state quite similar. Solo's research focused on what he called cryogenic catalystic serum, an injection of which could slow bodily processes to a death-like state of suspended animation. When his new wife develops symptoms of a neurological disease with no known cure, Solo steps up his efforts in the laboratory and, throwing off all scientific restraint, injects both himself and his wife with CCS. But Mathew, who has been investigating Solo's increasingly strange behavior with the collaboration of family friends, interrupts this experiment midway. Via diary entries, letters, lab reports and the like, the story of Julian Solo's obsession takes the reader through the boroughs of New York, from a lovely old house overlooking the Verrazano Narrows to abandoned institutions on Roosevelt Island. This is an admirable debut. (April)