Dust Up

When Ronald Hartwell, a biotech company employee, is shot to death at the door of Det. Doyle Carrick of the Philadelphia PD in McGoran’s ambitious third eco-thriller (after 2014’s Deadout), deadbeat Det. Mike Warren thinks Hartwell’s wife, Miriam, killed her husband in a domestic dispute, but Carrick has his doubts. When Carrick interviews Spencer Vinson, Ronald’s boss at Energene Corporation, about the murder, Vinson suggests that Ronald was engaging in industrial espionage. Meanwhile, Miriam, who also works for Energene, tells Carrick that she suspects Soyagene, a new GMO (genetically modified organism) that the company is field testing in Haiti, has caused extreme allergic reactions. Carrick ends up in Haiti, where he contends with powerful corporations with major investments in the island nation, a possible coup, a potential Ebola outbreak, and corrupt police. Some readers may feel that too much is going on, too slowly, in this violent tale of greed run amok. [em]Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary Agency. (Apr.) [/em]