Product Description

A lawyer and single mom living in Chicago with her ten-year-old daughter, Lauren, Janice Ramsey is pulled into a web of deceit and darkness when Lauren is kidnapped. A twisted genius from Harvard has developed a technology to alter human consciousness so that the subject has no emotion and will do his bidding. Janice’s ex-husband Sam has undergone “the change,” connecting Lauren’s kidnapping to this hideous plot. Janice joins forces with a bounty-hunter with a vendetta to find Lauren before it’s too late.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #821363 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 375 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bell, a former criminal lawyer and an award-winning author, mixes a dash of philosophy, a sprinkling of legal scenes and a dollop of science in this lukewarm Christian techno-thriller. Harvard biology professor Bently Davis is the acclaimed voice of reason against the Intelligent Design movement and a controlling partner in UniGen, a small biotech startup. "Nephilim Seed" is Davis's shorthand name for a project that will use injectable synthetic genes to create superintelligence in humans and free participants of emotions including religious ones. He's impatient to try the new process on a child, and defense lawyer Janice Ramsey's 10-year-old daughter, Lauren, appears to be the perfect candidate. After Lauren is kidnapped by Sam, who's Janice's ex-husband and a UniGen employee, Janice teams up with a rebellious, tattooed bounty hunter to find her daughter. The novel is plagued by multiple points of view that tangle the narrative thread. There are unbelievable moments, such as Janice phoning her mother to tell her Lauren has been kidnapped, to which her mother responds calmly: "I will call the prayer chain." Quick character transformations of Sam and Lauren occur at the end, and odd vernacular crops up throughout (chuckleheads, brung, stupidzoid). Although Bell doesn't shrink from portraying violence, he sidesteps sexual references, calling an attempted rape an "unspeakable act of male violation." While not as satisfying as his Christy Award winner, Final Witness, Bell's latest should be a reasonably diverting read for fans.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Thriller writer Bell takes a didactic turn in The Nephilim Seed, holding forth on the perils of manipulating genes. His heroine is lawyer Janice Ramsey, who's in the midst of a battle for custody of her daughter, Lauren, when Lauren is kidnapped. The perpetrator may be none other than Lauren's ex, a rich unbeliever whose altered genes Bell comes near to equating with demon possession. The story is redeemed somewhat with Bell's portrait of a likable bounty hunter, Jed Brown, who hits the road with Janice to find Lauren, as well as the killer of Jed's brother, a saintly creationist who dared to speak out against DNA research. John Mort
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About the Author
James Scott Bell is a former criminal lawyer and author of several law books. Now residing in Woodland Hills, California, he is a full-time writer and speaker, and has appeared as a legal commentator on Good Morning America, CBS Radio, and in Newsweek magazine. Bell is the award-winning author of Circumstantial Evidence, Final Witness, and Blind Justice.