THE BODY BY THE SHORE

Beware the fungus among us.

After attending an academic seminar, a group of scientists, all prominent in their various fields, suffer career setbacks and share an alarming tendency to die in peculiar accidents. This interdisciplinary group had met to explore a radical new theory recasting the conventional understanding of the nature of human life: What if the unique ability of Homo sapiens to think abstractly is the result of space-borne symbiotic microbes? As a sinister network of intelligence operatives maneuver to leverage this information, a frightened young Caribbean woman trapped on a decommissioned oil rig, a retired Danish policeman, and a former covert operative are drawn into the conspiracy as they struggle to puzzle out the strange circumstances confronting them. Khair’s cerebral thriller, set in a pandemic-ravaged near future, borrows liberally from the Michael Crichton playbook, animating classic suspense tropes with heady scientific speculation and dire warnings regarding the hubris of humans tampering with forces beyond their control. Khair centers the action in Denmark, cannily exploiting the country’s tidy, homogenous reputation to make trenchant observations about the unpredictable long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, a leitmotif that elegantly underscores the frequent authorial disquisitions on the mutative powers of microscopic organisms. The story’s real strength, however, lies in the shifting perspectives of his vividly realized characters, from the smart, resourceful woman stranded at sea to the reflexively racist but fundamentally decent old cop to the sophisticated and formidable secret agent; each is a fully dimensional and compelling point-of-view character, and their wildly divergent backgrounds and worldviews allow Khair to approach the novel’s questions about human nature from a variety of intriguing angles.

Familiar territory navigated with intelligence and grace.