BRED TO KILL

Paris-based Inspector Sharko and Lille police detective Lucie Henebelle, both shadows of their former selves following the abduction of the latter's twin daughters at the end of Syndrome E (2012), reunite to investigate a bizarre series of genetically engineered murders.

One of the twins is doing fine, but the other one is still missing and almost certainly dead. Single mom Lucie has quit the police force, but every time she hears a report of an unidentified child's body, she races off in mortal fear to see if it's hers. The psychologically rumpled Sharko, who had to be medicated for hallucinations and unwanted sounds in his head before the tragedy, trudges through his paces as a demoted homicide cop whose superior has it in for him. After the twins’ abductor is found dead in his jail cell, having ripped an artery in his throat with his bare hands, a connection is made between him and a female graduate student who was murdered in a primate research lab. Further ties are made between the abductor, who had a penchant for drawing things upside down, and a perfectly preserved Cro-Magnon man who left behind evidence of the same rare ability. Ultimately, a trip to the Amazon jungle is required to put all the pieces of the unsettling case together. This is the second of Thilliez's novels to be translated into English (Sharko and Henebelle each has a series in French). Like Syndrome E, in which video images cause terrible harm to those who view them, the sequel is lifted by the author's command of the sciences. Paleontology has rarely been this exciting.

French author Thilliez's follow-up to his international hit Syndrome E is nearly as good, leaving us eager to have the rest of his efforts released in the U.S.