A mass grave in Russia that conceals the mummified remains of two women, both with child -- and the conspiracy to keep it secret... a major discovery high in the Alps: the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family -- the newborn infant possessing disturbing characteristics... a mysterious disease that strikes only pregnant women, resulting in miscarriage.
In Greg Bear's stunning new thriller, nature is more of a bitch goddess than a kindly mother, and evolution is no longer just a theory - it's an urgent and dangerous fact. In DARWIN'S CHILDREN, human society is about to get a complete makeover. A new kind of humanity is growing up. Some call them the Virus Children. They are special children, equipped with significant natural upgrades that allow them to communicate and socialize in ways we can hardly imagine, or resist. Charming, gentle, persuasive, beautiful... in them can be seen a future that may make all of human history until now seem clumsy and brutal.
Vidocq. The name strikes terror in the Parisian underworld of 1818. As founder and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq has used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to capture some of France's most notorious and elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail of a tantalizing mystery - the fate of the young dauphin Louis-Charles, son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI.
In Louis Bayard's brilliantly imagined novel, Tiny Tim of 'Christmas Carol' fame has cast his crutches aside. Determined to cut his financial ties to his Uncle Ebenezer, he now spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasure hidden in their pockets. One day he comes across a girl's body, branded with a mysterious 'G'.
Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of 'virtual autopsy' - a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta's home. But when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked inside the cooler.
