FRACTAL

"Virtually unputdownable, a stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-blur kind of read." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Two years after her husband’s murder, Samantha “Sam” Arnsson attempts to begin a new chapter of her life with her son, “Little Vic,” and Quincy “Quin” Duncan, a new love interest. A data analyst for one of the government’s security agencies, she asks her brother-in-law, Jick Arnsson (erstwhile physician and current amateur sleuth), for help with a missing person case in Hawaii. A Honolulu-based investigator named Alicia Kehaulani Rogers disappeared almost eight months earlier on the Big Island of Hawaii while investigating a wealthy businessman, George Sturgis, who may or may not be involved in the cloning of humans. Sam believes Alicia probably died from an accident and assumes that sending Jick to Hawaii for one last look will be a relatively easy assignment.

But following Alicia’s trail leads Jick into discovering minor and contradictory clues that seem to point to something deeper that may be going on. Sturgis suffered a traumatic brain injury while scuba diving and hasn’t been the same since the accident. Jick finds it inconceivable that Sturgis could be involved in cloning but also discovers that Sturgis may have been involved in a plan for him and his wife to have a child through a surrogate decades ago in Greece. Alicia was last seen near a hundred-acre parcel of land owned by Sturgis, a remote stretch of forest that Sturgis’ reclusive adult son calls his “playground.” Before Jick realizes, he’s entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that spans decades and involves numerous murders and more than one psychopath.