cover image Lethal Genes: A Crime Novel with Catherine Sayler

Lethal Genes: A Crime Novel with Catherine Sayler

Linda Grant. Scribner Book Company, $21 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-684-82653-0

San Francisco high-tech PI Catherine Sayler returns from A Woman's Place to probe sabotage in a university plant genetics lab (""corn sex,"" her secretary jokes). Hired by Paul Raskin, the magnetically attractive manager of the maize lab at UC-Berkeley, Catherine questions researchers among whom academic and personal jealousies often erupt. When technician Raymond Zak dies of a heart attack, other staffers blame his severe weight problem. Catherine is not convinced: Zak had said he had something important to tell her. Then student Chuck Nishimura suffers a fatal allergic reaction to corn pollen, despite his previously unfailingly careful use of protective gear. Raskin and lab boss Kendra Crawford resist Catherine's certainty of foul play, fearing bad publicity and diminished clout with Berkeley educrats. But Catherine links Nishimura's recent $20,000 windfall to a biotech entrepreneur who may play dirty to cash in on a surprising product of corn research. Her investigation is complicated by the challenge Raskin poses to her commitment to her absent lover, Peter, and by responsibility for her niece, Molly, who is flunking high school while in her care. Grant again paints an engaging and gritty heroine, lovingly renders Bay Area life and, with solid research, even makes corn sex comprehensible. (Oct.)