First They Take Your Heart

By Todd Levins

Biologist Finn Barber yearned for the courage to follow his heart. He got it. Only it's led him from a comfortable life in Austin, Texas to a concentration camp in Colombia, South America.

Finn agreed to help Sarah Dougherty find the man chasing her for a mouth swab mostly to prove to himself he wasn't a complete milquetoast. Instead, he fell madly in love with her, and then proceeded to ruin everything.

Now Sarah's gone. The police try to reassure Finn. Even his own mother tells him to move on. But he can't stop thinking of Sarah, or what the killer meant by “DNA message”. Plus, he's through with a life of backing down.

A few isolated cases of smallpox appear in the United States. Finn conducts some clever experiments and is horrified when he finds a connection between Sarah's cheek swab and the smallpox. The FBI dismiss his suspicions and warn him from further tampering, but he's becoming convinced it's not the growing smallpox outbreak that's so dangerous.

It's what follows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Todd Levins
• Release date: Sep 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311647849

Todd Levins

TODD LEVINS studied molecular and cell biology at Penn State University, but soon after graduating hightailed it to Austin, Texas to be a rock star. Well beyond the point of clear failure he slunk back to the security of a research laboratory in Durham, North Carolina. But no sooner could feel himself turning to stone. He sold all his possessions and set off on a two-year sojourn of South America. The first draft to this novel he wrote in eight months while on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. He lives with a dog in Durham, North Carolina.

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