Double Helix

Ted Thring is a book reviewer for the Queen’s University radio
station.

While on vacation in Venice, Deborah, a young stockbroker, meets and
begins an affair with Giacomo, a handsome Toronto doctor. Their affair,
which continues in Toronto, results in pregnancy. One of Deborah’s
clients suddenly starts buying shares in an obscure American bioresearch
firm, which has discovered a vaccine that causes women to produce only
male offspring. (The vaccine is seen as a solution to the world’s
population explosion, since only female babies grow up to produce more
babies.) Then the client is murdered, a former researcher with the
company disappears, and Giacomo turns out to be involved with clinics
where the vaccine is being tested on unsuspecting women.

After Giacomo disappears as well, Deborah sets out to find him on a
quest that takes her to Miami, Baltimore, Rio de Janeiro, Sгo Paulo,
and, finally, back to Venice. In the course of her quest, she is
kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and almost killed by a mob of Brazilian
slum dwellers. It should be obvious by now that suspension of disbelief
is essential for readers of this frenetically paced thriller.