From Publishers Weekly
Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner McAuley (Whole Wide World) delivers a grim and gruesome near-future thriller, in which a series of devastating plagues, some natural, some manmade, have spread across the earth. In Africa, where civil wars rage out of control and an enormous Dead Zone stretches across the continent, transnational corporations have taken over several nations, using them to conduct experiments in genetic engineering that are illegal elsewhere. Nicholas Hyde, part of a team sent to investigate a massacre, discovers that the dead have been horribly mauled, their skulls smashed and their brains removed. When gun-wielding primates the size of 10-year-old children with enormous claws and teeth-the white devils-attack the team, Hyde is one of the few survivors. On returning to what passes for civilization, he's appalled to learn that the powers-that-be refuse to believe his story, insisting that the hideous creatures were merely enemy soldiers in disguise. Obsessed with a need to speak for the dead, Nicholas, who has his own dark secret to hide, sets out to uncover the truth about the white devils. Though more complex than necessary, this novel serves as a powerful warning about the sinister possibilities inherent in genetic engineering. FYI: McAuley has also won the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell awards.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Nicholas Hyde, a volunteer working with a humanitarian charity in Africa, is part of a team investigating an apparent wartime atrocity. The team is ambushed, and small, ape-like creatures - pale, fierce, and preternaturally strong - slaughter most of the group in a matter of minutes. 'Diable blanc', the team's government observer calls them - 'white devils' - but after the rescue he falls in with the official story and claims instead that he saw only rebel troops in body paint. The cover-up seems to originate from Obligate, the company that effectively owns the Congo. Shell-shocked and angry, Nicholas refuses to cooperate. He knows what he saw, and he will tell the world the truth. And that's when people around him start to die. Only by discovering the secret behind the white devils can Nick protect himself from the forces arrayed against him. Together with Teddy Yssel, a bush pilot who survived an earlier attack, and Elspeth Faber, seeking justice after the murder of her scientist father, Nick journeys into the heart of darkness of 21st century Africa: the Dead Zone. But also heading for the Dead Zone is the American mercenary, Cody Corbin. Evangelist, eco-warrior, terrorist: sent to cleanse the abominations from God's good Earth, and anyone who gets in his way is going straight to Hell...
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