The DNA Business
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Published: 1967 London, Hutchinson1967 London Arrow
Comments:
“Henry Calvin has made a cheerful thriller in which, for once, the side we want to win does so.”Times Literary Supplement
“Mr. Calvin … rattles along at a great rate and there are the customary Calvin cracks. This is one for the holidays.”Glasgow Herald
“Mr. Calvin … rattles along at a great rate and there are the customary Calvin cracks. This is one for the holidays.”Glasgow Herald
A small section of British Intelligence in Whitehall.A break-in at a laboratory in a northern university town.Research on DNA and the possibilities of altering hereditary characteristics.A bland boffin in touch with a slightly suspect professor in Zurich.The boffin’s delicious daughter, a mathematician, who shares her father’s (not altogether admiring) views of Intelligence.
Anyone who thinks these ingredients look like the parts of a do-it-yourself kit for a modern thriller is reckoning without the unpredictable and high-spirited Henry Calvin. He takes the ingredients, shakes them together, and serves up a confection which keeps the reader guessing until the last page. Whose side is Dr. Cadder on? Is the drowning of a young student an accident or not? What of the missing girl student, presumed pregnant? These are some of the questions which plague the enthusiastic young Intelligence operative Bill Timmins, while the attractive mathematical daughter adds to the confusion by stirring his hormones and his suspicions simultaneously.
It is the intervention of Bill’s trigger-happy chief that provokes a denouement of gunfire, knife-play and bafflement, to round off the raciest and best Calvin to date.
Anyone who thinks these ingredients look like the parts of a do-it-yourself kit for a modern thriller is reckoning without the unpredictable and high-spirited Henry Calvin. He takes the ingredients, shakes them together, and serves up a confection which keeps the reader guessing until the last page. Whose side is Dr. Cadder on? Is the drowning of a young student an accident or not? What of the missing girl student, presumed pregnant? These are some of the questions which plague the enthusiastic young Intelligence operative Bill Timmins, while the attractive mathematical daughter adds to the confusion by stirring his hormones and his suspicions simultaneously.
It is the intervention of Bill’s trigger-happy chief that provokes a denouement of gunfire, knife-play and bafflement, to round off the raciest and best Calvin to date.
Here's the slightly grubby back jacket. A triple XXX!
Copyright 2025 The Estate of Clifford Hanley