2011 "First Edition" stated; Harper Collins publishers, New York; hardbound in black boards embossed on front cover with micro-person and beetle; red foil lettering along spine; maps of Oahu inside covers; very good condition with unmarked pages; dust jacket very good.
Description -
Micro is a techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, published posthumously in 2011. Upon his death in 2008, an untitled, unfinished manuscript was found on his computer, which would become Micro and complete his two-book deal with publisher HarperCollins. HarperCollins chose science writer Richard Preston to complete the novel from Crichton's remaining notes and research, and it was finally published in 2011.
Micro is Crichton's second posthumous novel; Pirate Latitudes, a historical thriller, was also found on his computer and published posthumously in 2009.
Plot -
The narrative begins with a private investigator named Marcos Rodriguez pulling up to a metal building located on the island of Oahu. The building is the main headquarters of Nanigen Micro-Technologies, a research company that specializes in discovering new types of medicine. Disguised as a security guard, Rodriguez enters the unattended building and begins searching the grounds for an unknown object. As he makes his way through the halls of the building, however, he begins to notice mysterious, ultra-fine cuts appearing on his body. Spooked, Rodriguez flees the building.
Shortly after leaving the Nanigen headquarters, Rodriguez makes his way to the office of his employer, Willy Fong. When he arrives, he notices another man, of Chinese descent, waiting in the office. Fong begins to question Rodriguez about his cuts, but before Rodriguez can explain, the Chinese man's throat is slit by an unseen force. Fong and Rodriguez barely have time to react before they are also killed. Their deaths are reported as a triple-suicide, and Lieutenant Dan Watanabe of the Honolulu Police Department is assigned to investigate the case.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard graduate student Peter Jansen is collecting venom from a cobra for further experimentation. He is joined in the biology lab by six other graduate students: Rick Hutter, an ethnobotanist; Karen King, an arachnologist; Erika Moll, an entomologist and coleopterist; Amar Singh, a botanist; Jenny Linn, a biochemist studying pheromones; and Danny Minot, a doctoral student studying the linguistics of science. They are visited by the CEO of Nanigen, Vincent "Vin" Drake, along with his CFO, Alyson Bender, and Peter's brother Eric, who is a vice president at Nanigen. The seven students are recruited by Drake to work with him at a laboratory in Hawaii. Although they are at first reluctant, they all decide to take Drake's offer and fly out to Oahu.
The following morning, Peter receives vague text messages from Eric urging him not to come to Hawaii...