knockout
mouse by James Calder
(Chronicle Books), 272 pages, $19.95
paper. Rating: NNNN Rating: NNNN
If the debut bill damen silicon Valley Mystery is anything to go by, James Calder’s series is sure to be a knockout. It’s smart, savvy and right in step with next week’s news.Documentary filmmaker and I.T. dropout Bill Damen shoots industrial videos for high-stakes players in the biotechnology field. When a molecular biologist dies from an allergic reaction to something she ate at his dinner party and the blame shifts to Bill, he plugs into the world of genetic engineering in search of answers. What he finds is truly scary!
Featuring a likeable hero with a filmmaker’s eye for detail, a cast of ambitious dot-commers, a sexy Web designer girlfriend and a vacation’s worth of San Francisco architecture and snappy writing, this series can’t miss.
And, no, the knockout mouse of the title has nothing to do with your computer — it’s a lab mouse that’s had certain genes “knocked out” for testing purposes.
