The Darwin Strain: An R. J. MacCready Novel

Written by Bill Schutt and J. R. Finch

Narrated by David Colacci

The authors of Hell’s Gate and The Himalayan Codex deliver their third high-octane thriller—a riveting blend of science, history, and suspense featuring zoologist and adventurer Captain R. J. MacCready.

“Looks like Schutt and Finch are filling the void left by the passing of Michael Crichton.”—James Cameron, director/writer/explorer

Though the fighting has stopped and Hitler is vanquished, a dangerous new war between America and the Soviet Union has begun. Invaluable in defeating the Nazis, accidental crypto-zoologist R. J. MacCready and Yanni Thorne, an indigenous Brazilian and expert in animal behavior, are working for the Pentagon once again. Sent to a mysterious Greek island in a remote corner of the Mediterranean, they are investigating rumors about a volcanic spring with “miraculous” healing properties that the locals say is guarded by sea monsters from ancient legends.

The islanders believe that, like Fatima, the spring is a gift from God. To the Greek Orthodox Church, it is a sign of a deadly evil foretold in apocalyptic texts. Alongside French and Chinese researchers—men who share their strange, blood-stained past—Mac and Yanni discover that the volcanic spring’s undersea plumes release an exotic microbe that can transform life with astonishing speed.

To find the source of the Volcanic spring, Mac and Yanni must find a way to neutralize “the Dragons of Revelation”—a fearsome aquatic species also known as “Kraken,” which are preventing the scientists from exploring deep beneath the sea’s surface. Mutating at an astonishing pace, the Kraken have evolved into a chillingly high alien intelligence. As the race to possess the “miracle” microbe heats up, tensions between geopolitics, religion, and ordinary scientists confronted with the unknown escalate into chaos. Mac and Yanni know all too well that one wrong choice can easily set in motion a biological chain reaction that will reach across the decades to enhance—or destroy—everything that lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062898159

Bill Schutt

Bill Schutt is Professor of Biology at LIU-Post (Long Island University) and Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures and a novel, Hell's Gate (with J. R. Finch).

Reviews for The Darwin Strain

[ronploude · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Put well-known characters like General MacArthur, Jacque Cousteau, and Ian Fleming into a geological environment of volcanos and hot water sea vents with strange extremophile growth that has already been well documented in several scientific documentaries and you have the freedom to write a story that keeps your reader’s attention from the first sentence. As these characters are already known, the author had little need for character development other than setting the story’s date and contextual political factors. Being free of much of the character building and scene-setting, (hot water spewing sea vents need not be described as they can easily be visualized from documentary coverage), the author was able to write an engrossing story about giant cephalopods habiting the waters of the Greek Isle of Santorini. They were self-aware and had been at a sentient level similar to man since the beginning of human existence. Using human sentient standards, the cephalopods do not measure up. From the cephalopod’s measurements, humans do not measure up to cephalopod standards. Both races are alien to each other so little mutual empathy exists. Bill Schutt’s story is about conflict when both these races compete for the same resource, i.e. control of an underwater hot water vent with healing properties. In order to make the story even more interesting, Schutt elected to include a cold war conflict between the US and the Russians. Both countries wanted the healing vents that the cephalopods had controlled and protected for thousands of years.Most of the events in the book were taken from fictionalized historical events from the late ’40s and early ’50s. Old and ancient events are mentioned throughout the book. For lovers of history and geology, there is a well-written appendix at the end of the book that references and gives some background for all authentic events in the book. I enjoyed reading this appendix as much as I enjoyed reading the fictionalized story.The Darwin Strain is a must-read for history buffs and thriller book lovers.