Noel Bersch

Murder in Designer Genes Noel Bersch

Malibu, California. The sun has just come up andthere is no fog along the beach. Suddenly all hell breaks loose. RetiredScotland Yard Chief Inspector Richard Greene's wife, Jenny, discovers thegruesome corpse of a man wedged between rocks at the foot of a cliff. Thereshould have been blood, lots of it, because one of the man's legs is missing,severed just below the hip, the frayed edges of his jeans exposing a freshstump. All identification, including fingerprints, has been removed, the onlyclue, a peculiar hand-embroidered design on the right-rear pocket of his jeans. Was it a revenge killing, a hate crime, the work of a satanic cult? Inspector Greene, in L. A.to deliver the keynote speech at the International Forensics Symposium,suspects the bizarre presentation is the work of ALOPEX, master of disguise,scourge of Scotland Yard, purposely designed to draw the Inspector into anotherdeadly game of chess. When Alopexs's first tauntingpostcard arrives, the Inspector's worst suspicions are confirmed. Alopex'svictims are always members of the medical profession who have through financialinfluence or membership in the "old boy's club," circumvented the judicialsystem, their patient's deaths never avenged. His latest victim, Dr. Louis Bronsib, a lustful egomaniac, covets a Nobel Prize at anyprice. In bed with organized crime, he ruthlessly tests an untried AIDS vaccinein Africa where he becomes Alopex'squarry. When the young son of a Greekshipping magnate dies after mistakenly receiving a bone-marrow transplantcontaining hyped AIDS-virus instead of Bronsib's"miracle designer genes," maliciously added by one of Bronsib'sdiscarded lovers, Bronsib becomes the target of amob-style hit while fishing in Capri. Taban, Alopex's partner in crime, accidentally overhears the plotto kill Bronsib. Consequently, when the presumeddead, wounded and unconscious Bronsib fallsoverboard, Alopex's is waiting beneath the surfacewith scuba gear to take him on board his luxury yacht, The Delphi. Wh