A Breed Apart [Mass Market Paperback]

Pierre Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2009

Lt. Elliot Elliot, aka E Squared. A botched drug raid yanks him off the street and into a cubicle at the Pearson Institute of Health Sciences, where he’s reduced to hunting down stolen laptops. Then the ultimate insult: track down an escaped lab animal, a seventy-five-pound black Labrador retriever.

But the dog turns out to be an extraordinary creature at the heart of an international collision between science, money, lust, and life itself. And as Elliot struggles to understand what’s going on, the dog must wage its own desperate battle for survival .

Elliot encounters a trophy wife from his own past, a professional killer with a medieval bent, a comatose surgeon with a checkered history, and a billionaire locked in a frantic struggle to stay alive—all connected to a dog that guards a secret far deadlier than anyone can imagine.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Medical thriller meets gritty detective novel in this extremely well-written and suspenseful tale of a most unusual dog. When police detective Elliot Elliot is ordered to recover a missing research canine, he stumbles across a mysterious brain scan that contradicts the official records on his ex-girlfriend's comatose husband. In counterpoint, ruthless contract killer Victor Korvin seeks to capture the dog and deliver her to a financier desperate to save himself from a rapidly advancing medical condition. The nameless dog herself provides a third major viewpoint as her enhanced brain tries to make sense of the changing conditions that threaten her survival. Davis (The Third Pandemic as Pierre Ouellette) skillfully interweaves taut plotting, nuanced characters and convincing insight into the mind of a superintelligent animal who's still, at heart, a dog. (May)
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Review

“[Davis] has a graceful, witty style and his ability to render believable astonishingly improbable occurrences is the stuff of sorcery.” —Dallas Morning News

“The author has a sure instinct for clarity and an absolute genius for metaphor . . . unremittingly inventive.” —Entertainment Weekly

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Dell (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440245087
• ISBN-13: 978-0440245087
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.2 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pierre Davis (aka Pierre Ouellette) entered the creative realm at age 13 as a lead guitarist for numerous bands in the Pacific Northwest, including the nationally known Paul Revere and the Raiders. He went on to play with such jazz luminaries as saxophonist Jim Pepper and bassist David Friesen, all the while composing sound tracks for short films and videos. To support his music habit, he became a freelance writer and eventually co-founded KVO, an advertising agency specializing in high technology, serving as its creative director. During this period, he wrote two novels eventually published in seven languages, with both optioned for film. His third novel, A Breed Apart, was published in 2009 to highly favorable reviews. He has also directed and produced The Loser's Club, documentary about struggling musicians, which was broadcast on public television and exhibited at numerous film festivals. Pierre resides in Portland, Oregon, where he now devotes himself exclusively to writing fiction and playing jazz guitar now and then in a little bar just down the street. He recently completed second novel for Bantam-Dell, entitled Origin Unknown, which explores the relationship between neurobiology and evil. It will be out July 2011. He is currently working on a revision of a novel he wrote 12 years ago, set in a world with a vanishing middle class, a collapsed health care system, and mounting political conflict. Sound familiar? It's titled "The Final Age: A Post-Econolyptic Account of Life Everlasting".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A CLASS ABOVE THE REST, September 12, 2009

By 

NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: A Breed Apart (Mass Market Paperback)

A BREED APART is one of the books I enjoyed most this year. As a scientist myself I had came to appreciate Pierre Davis' (aka Pierre Ouellette's) crisp writing, tight plot-lines and cutting-edge science - which is not only well understood but also well explained. This book is an excellent example, although it may not be the author's best.

A disgraced cop with a lot of ex-girlfriend baggage; an escaped dog with a lot of extra genetic baggage; a sadistic assassin with a Mongolian fixation; homeless honor and corporate greed and (lack of) ethics; a reclusive puppet-master billionaire clinging to life; and an ironic twist in the arguments both for and against stem-cell research.

If you are a fan of late Michael Crichton, view this as the baby that JURASSIC PARK and RISING SUN would have had: A real page-turner technothriller with philosophical hooks.

The book could use more subtle location separators within the pages (three stars would be as effective as those thick black lines) and a better cover-art. But one shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down!, June 18, 2009

By 

Angela - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Breed Apart (Mass Market Paperback)

This book combines mystery, suspense and science in a really novel kind of way. The characters, especially the detective at the center of the story, are vivid and well-defined. But the real hero of the book is the dog, which the author manages to bring to life in a most convincing manner. Throughout the book, he manages to take the most high-flying of concepts and bring them down to earth so that they constantly propel the story along: Advanced stem-cell research, animal intelligence, and various neurological diseases, some of them quite exotic. The pace never falters and the ending provides a very gratifying payoff.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars survival of the fittest, January 29, 2010

By 

Alexandra Y. Caluen "acaluen" (Beverly Hills, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Breed Apart (Mass Market Paperback)

I found this thriller to be completely engrossing; I picked it up at the grocery store for lunch-hour reading and had a hard time putting it down to go back to my desk!

What I found particularly good: characterization; plot; action; and resolution. As the story unfolded, the author provided enough bits of each interwoven story to build into a coherent whole. At first I wondered where he was going with some of the elements, but by the midpoint it was clear where the relationships were. In the meantime, the individual characters (including the dog) were sufficiently interesting and sympathetic (with the exception of the killer - brrrr! - he was interesting but most definitely NOT sympathetic!) to keep me involved and patient for the next clue.

I would disagree with the reviewer who found it slow-paced. It is, however, dense: not for someone who wants a quick, easy read or who is easily distracted. You will miss some good stuff if you don't concentrate. I am a reader who doesn't often try to figure out the endings of mystery novels, and since I don't try, I am a little disappointed if it's too easy to follow and predict what happens. This book definitely did not have that problem.

The resolution of "A Breed Apart" sets up the possibility of a sequel, and I for one would be happy to read it.