W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, international bestselling authors of The First North Americans series, present a gripping, thought-provoking contemporary thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Here a project of cutting-edge genetics might lead to a better world - or a waking nightmare …

For thirteen years - since he became one of several scientists chosen to raise apes bred by the pharmaceutical giant SAC - Dr. Jim Dutton, his young daughter Brett, and the bonobo ape Umber have been a family. For Umber is far more than a subject or pet. She types, reads, speaks sign language, favors psychedelic clothes, and even contemplates the nature of God.

Then a colleague forces Jim to confront the reality he's tried to ignore: Umber and the other SAC apes are too intelligent to be pure bonobos. They are "augmented" apes, more similar to early hominids than to anthropoids. And when SAC abruptly demands Umber's immediate return, it becomes vital for Jim to discover why the corporation created this new species.

The quest for answers will take Jim and his family to Africa, to a SAC facility that fronts as a preserve dedicated to helping once-captive chimps. But the grounds also hide a covert genetics lab, a missing band of blue-eyed apes, crude buildings decorated with skulls, and, deep in the shadows, human corpses savagely hacked to pieces …

Now the struggle to uncover SAC's secrets becomes a fight for survival. Suddenly Umber, Brett, and Jim find themselves hunted by beings who are fiercely territorial, brutally aggressive, brilliantly inventive, and far stronger than any human.

And like humans they can be utterly, and murderously, psychotic...…

"Umber sits outside on the dead lawn. Starlight silvers the grass and the orange fur of the cat named Stray she holds in her lap. Umber draws out a piece of meat she saved from dinner and feeds the cat. She lifts the index finger of her right hand, slips it between the first two fingers of her left hand, and pulls it away fast. She repeats the sign over and over: 'Run away, run away, run away.'

Stray doesn't seem to feel the fear that eats at the base of Umber's throat and blinks sleepily. Umber feels her heart shaking apart. It hurts when it beats. The insects are feeding on her. She can feel their sharp mouths in her soul. Umber is lonely and afraid. Yet her bones are gone. The fear has clawed them to pieces. She can barely walk on her rubbery legs. Umber curls on her side in the grass, lets out her breath, protecting Stray from the claws that walk in her bones."