Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Genesis Flaw
    Unavailable
    The Genesis Flaw
    Unavailable
    The Genesis Flaw
    Ebook458 pages6 hours

    The Genesis Flaw

    By L.A. Larkin

    2.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A gutsy advertising director takes on the world's most powerful biotech company in a fast-paced environmental thriller for our time

     

    Human experiments in Zimbabwe, an Australian farmer's death, and a Sydney CEO's suicide: these events are linked in the mind of one woman, Serena Swift. A ballsy advertising director with a guilty conscience, she decides to take on one of the world's most powerful producers of genetically modified food, Gene-Asis. Serena disguises herself to infiltrate Gene-Asis in an attempt to expose the company's horrific genetic experiments. But suddenly Swift's informants disappear, and she is hunted by a hired killer and framed for murder. Chased from Sydney to New York, she must face the man she fears most, on his own turf. If she fails, nothing can stop a global catastrophe. And nobody can help her—except a dead man.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMurdoch Books
    Release dateJun 1, 2012
    ISBN9781742663722
    Unavailable
    The Genesis Flaw
    Author

    L.A. Larkin

    L.A. Larkin is the author of The Genesis Flaw, Thirst, Devour, and Prey, as well as humorous mysteries written under the name Louisa Bennet. She is known for her fast-paced, high-stakes thrillers that tap into the hot issues of our time, her engaging central characters, and the extremes she goes to when researching her stories. She divides her time between writing thrillers and running thriller-writing courses in both Australia and the UK. For more information, visit www.lalarkin.com.

    Related authors

    Related to The Genesis Flaw

    Related ebooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Shula And The Sun

      Oct 13, 2017

      Shula And The Sun
      8 min read

    • Article

      All My Tomorrows

      May 10, 2022

      It was Misha’s first day minding the shop, and already she’d broken the fifth rule. Always lock the door immediately. When you had the most valuable merchandise in the universe, you had to take the utmost precautions. She hadn’t meant to disobey. It

      13 min read

    • Article

      Getting Up

      Oct 15, 2022

      Getting Up
      20 min read

    • Article

      The heartbeat OF PARIS

      Apr 10, 2024

      The heartbeat OF PARIS
      9 min read

    • Article

      Strange Season

      Jun 4, 2020

      Strange Season
      14 min read

    • Article

      The Traveler

      Nov 1, 2020

      The Traveler
      9 min read

    • Article

      Running Away

      Feb 22, 2021

      Leaving London behind her, Millie drove faster, picturing thousands of crazed fans in pursuit, desperate for what – a lock of her hair? Or Julian; except after the last gig, somehow she knew he wouldn’t follow. She knew from bitter experience that di

      5 min read

    • Article

      Intarsia

      Feb 6, 2020

      Intarsia
      6 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2022

      It was an unusual birthday. Colorful banners blanketed the backyard. Kids chased each other through the grass. Adults talked. It all went downhill from there. My little sister was turning five. On her birthday cake, painted in frosting, was a fat, pi

      7 min read

    • Article

      Yohanca Delgado

      Mar 9, 2021

      The widow arrived at LaGuardia on a Sunday, but the rumors about the woman who had rented a big apartment, sight unseen, had taken an earlier flight. We had already reviewed, on many occasions and in hushed tones, in the quiet that comes after long h

      15 min read

    • Article

      The Juggler’s Wife

      Jun 9, 2020

      The situation in itself is not unique. There was a man who hated his job and wanted a new one. There was a man who was sick of his boring job and wanted an exciting job instead. This man was depressed, but he saw a way out. He thought this way out wa

      24 min read

    • Article

      Intelligent Creatures

      Jul 6, 2023

      Intelligent Creatures
      19 min read

    • Article

      THE HOUSE with the BLUE DOOR

      May 7, 2020

      THE HOUSE with the BLUE DOOR
      6 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Play Dead

      Mar 3, 2020

      There was a man, let’s call him Henry VIII. There was his wife, let’s call her Anne B. Let’s give them a castle and make it nice. Let’s give her many boy babies but make them dead. Let’s give him a fussy way of being. Let’s make her smart and sneaky,

      17 min read

    • Article

      My Dinner with Denis Johnson

      Jun 25, 2018

      My Dinner with Denis Johnson
      13 min read

    • Article

      Excerpt

      Dec 12, 2019

      He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing. Not much space for it in the new home, just a few rooms lined up in a row, underneath a series of slow-moving ceiling fans, an array of antique clocks ticking on one wal

      4 min read

    • Article

      Make A Stand

      Jan 17, 2024

      Make A Stand
      6 min read

    • Article

      Memories Of A Miracle

      Dec 1, 2023

      Memories Of A Miracle
      8 min read

    • Article

      Beyond the Mangrove Trees

      Aug 6, 2020

      No one expects their house to float away. Ethel certainly hadn’t. Our story begins in the sleepy village of Greenwood, where Ethel had spent her entire life. It was an overcast Sunday afternoon and Ethel watched the rain lash against the window from

      7 min read

    • Article

      Always In Memory

      Sep 1, 2022

      Always In Memory
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lost Children

      Aug 4, 2022

      Lost Children
      5 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Apr 21, 2022

      It Happened to Me…
      8 min read

    • Article

      Every CLOUD

      Aug 31, 2022

      Every CLOUD
      6 min read

    • Article

      MAKE or BREAK

      Nov 28, 2019

      MAKE or BREAK
      8 min read

    Reviews for The Genesis Flaw

    2.5/5

    7 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      In the near future Gene-Asis is an influential company which produces genetically modified seeds that company marketing material claims will solve world hunger due to their higher yields and resistance to the various disasters that can befall traditional crops. But young advertising executive Serena Swift thinks the company, or at least the seeds it produced, was responsible for her father’s recent death from lung cancer. When the CEO of the Asia-Pacific arm of the company commits suicide in his Sydney office and a scientist who had been involved in a particular set of food trials disappears it seems Serena may be right in thinking there is something worth covering up.

      I was pre-disposed to liking this book, being generally ready to believe that big corporations have the ethics of alley cats as I am. The fact that in this instance the cover up involves some fairly abhorrent practices that have at least a passing resemblance to those carried out by real-world companies like Monsanto should have sealed the deal on my enjoyment as I do have very real concerns about those practices. But I’m afraid this book never quite sold its premise to me, spending too much time focusing on its heroine and her endless loop of pretend-guilt over her continued manipulation of the men around her and not enough time establishing exactly what Gene-Asis was doing and what impact its behaviour was having on its victims. Only towards the very end of the novel (the last dozen or so pages) do we get any real sense of the victims of Gene-Asis’ behaviour and it was too late to engage my sympathy.

      I should also have enjoyed the gender role reversal from traditional thrillers with the hero role being taken on by a woman. Unfortunately I didn’t particularly like Serena and nor, more importantly, did I believe her as a character. The fact she starts the book as an advertising executive does, I admit, speak to my own prejudice (I hate advertisements and am not overly keen on the people who make them) but even without that I can’t see that I would ever have taken a shine to her. She chose to go to a job interview rather than attend her father’s death bed. Admittedly she didn’t know exactly when he would die but I couldn’t help but think a less selfish person would have put the job hunting on hold for a few days. That aside, we are then supposed to believe that even though she couldn’t miss a single job interview for her father she would put her whole life in turmoil to avenge his death. Perhaps she was meant to motivated by guilt but it seemed to me the beginning of a very self-absorbed kind of focus for the novel. When she starts using her oft-mentioned (very oft) incredible beauty to trick a series of gormless men into taking ridiculous risks to help her out of various tight situations she lost any vestige of interest I had in her. Apparently she failed to notice any irony in the fact that she was doing exactly what she accused the big bad company of, i.e. exploiting anyone she could in any way she could regardless of the risk to them because she needed a certain outcome. I suppose the fact that she verbally beat herself up for a nanosecond or two after each such encounter was meant to separate her from the guilt-free evil businessmen. I’d be curious to know what younger readers make of the book as I did wonder if my inability to relate to Serena was at least partly to do with our age difference (she is mid 20′s I think and I am mid 40′s).

      The book did zip along at a fast pace as thrillers are meant to do and the science seems pretty credible. Certainly the computer hacking (a subject I at least know a little something about) is within the bounds of possibility. I think if you found Serena a more sympathetic character than I did you’d find the book a pretty good way to while away a summer afternoon or two.

      my rating 2.5 stars
    • 4/5
      I got a lot of mileage out of the Sydney Writers' Festival this year. Saw a lot of great authors and presentations, picked up some fantastic books and had a good time. I'd like to see my local Perth Writers' Festival get the same sponsorship so they could put on a big event too. I'm looking at you Dymocks!

      Anyway, I saw LA Larkin talk about her writing and the book The Genesis Flaw and managed to miss out on picking up a copy. I blame the scheduling and Sydney baristas for not knowing how to make a real cup of tea. Fortunately The Sydney Writers' Centre were kind enough to send me a copy. Yes I'm getting to the review.

      I've read three or four GM crop themed thriller novels this year, this was the most realistic of them by far. At the Writers' Festival LA mentioned some of her research methods, put lightly she goes to great lengths, even Antarctica (she even mentioned a hackers conference she attended and how to spot the undercover cops). A still hate the anti-GM themes in books, being a plant scientist and all.

      Despite this, LA has put together a very believable and engaging thriller. I was caught up in the story and liked the more realistic ending to the novel. This was an engaging tale of David vs Goliath, people who have had their phone hacked vs Rupert Murdoch, 99% against the 1% (that'll get the site traffic up). This book is well worth a read if you like the idea of an eco-thriller to make you think.
    • 2/5
      Big conspiracies, cyber-threats and nefarious company goings on aren't my favourite thriller material, so I was more than a little worried about my reactions to THE GENESIS FLAW. This is a first book from Australian author L.A. Larkin (who, from her blurb, works for one of Australia's leading climate change consultancies). The author's background, and the sorts of research listed that went into the book did make it something I thought might be worth having a look at despite my personal preferences.There's an interesting combination of settings in THE GENESIS FLAW. The reader is taken from the cut-throat world of advertising and public relations, to dry land farming in Australia, the world of computer hacking and human experiments in Zimbabwe. At a break-neck pace. Serena Swift feels guilty that she wasn't there when her farming father dies. She also feels very guilty because she's always suspected that the cause of his death were the genetically modified crops that he'd planted. She came back to Australia to reconnect with her father, too late to her regret. So she does what she knows she should do - and sets out to prove that the company behind the genetically modified seeds knows all too well what they have unleashed on the world.A lot of the credibility for the threat in this book has to come from a sense of a personal threat to Serena, and her supporters, as they attempt to bring down an evil corporate empire. There's also the bigger threat to mankind as a result of a feral genetic product being released. So part of the requirement is that a reader must identify with Serena and feel very much "on her side" so to speak. This was, to be honest, a bit tricky at points through out the book, as there was something every so slightly off-putting about our heroine. Obviously some of that reaction is on purpose - Serena misses her father's death because she opts to go for a job interview - something she beats herself up for later on sure, but for some reason it didn't quite engender the empathy or sympathy that you'd possibly want in a central character. Mind you, an unsympathetic, unlikeable central character can also work - firing the reader up against that person, but in this case neither reaction quite seemed to surface. Serena remained a little lacklustre for my liking. Perhaps there was a little too much doing something unnecessary and then beating herself up afterwards? Perhaps it was one too many fem-jep situations for my liking.The other problem is that a threat from a faceless / voiceless big corporate entity again can work - it can actually be quite creepy. But this entity seemed a little unfocused. Gene-Asis was there, but it morphed into a lurking corporate front-man and a hired killer and lost immediacy and some anonymity - which would have been a lot more sobering. There was also a lack of identification with the "victim". Serena's father was a tragic death, but it seemed somehow too localised to support the global threat of potentially mutant genetics. As horrible as it sounds, once evidence of the human experiments in Zimbabwe surfaced, and the victim's became very human, the threat became more believable and immediate; the tension and pressure increased, and a real feeling of menace came into the story. To be fair though, I still don't like these sorts of storylines, and allowances need to be made for that. THE GENESIS FLAW is a pretty good first thriller, with a central female character that will appeal to many many readers. There's a little romance, a lot of action, a threat for those who are more comfortable with this sort of storyline, some sinister big-company goings on and a one woman against the conspiracy scenario that could absolutely deliver for fans of this sort of book.