Mutants

A plague of mice in a small English village is light news, a filler item. But a follow-up reveals that these creatures, with their humanoid hands and cunning, aren't quite miceand they kill people. Circumstantial evidence points to a nearby genetic research lab as their source, but the investigation is hampered by a government-imposed news ban and the study's top secret classification. The results of an experiment in accelerated pregnancy cause the mice to drop frequent, multiple litters, each with the unanticipated side effect of producing larger, smarter and fiercer rodents. As the mice spread terror and death throughout the country, geneticist Quentin Quarrier turns inward, trying to reconcile himself to what he has wrought. This jigsaw-puzzle novel is written in a style so elliptical, obscurely allusive and pitted with witticisms that readers virtually have to solve a double acrostic to get through each page.(November)