cover image Lethal Exposure

Lethal Exposure

Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason. Ace Books, $5.99 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-441-00536-9

Anderson and Beason are both physicists, which gives their latest plenty of scientific authenticity. So if you know the difference between Feynman diagrams and scattering matrices and don't mind two-dimensional characters, this should be your superconducting cup of tea. Nobel-nominated physicist Georg Dumenco is blasted with radiation while working on a project at Fermilab--the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. What appears to be an accident is, of course, not and Dumenco's beautiful, tempestuous doctor, Trish LeCroix, recruits her former lover, Craig Kreident, crack FBI agent and Scientific American subscriber--and protagonist of Virtual Destruction and Fallout--to investigate before Dumenco succumbs. Intrigues from India, radiation sickness, a few gunshots, and a love triangle point up the importance difference between nuanced complexity and confusing complications. (July)