1996 1st edition "First Edition" stated; Crown Publishers, Inc., New York; hardbound in blue and red boards with bold silver lettering along spine; very good condition with unmarked pages; dust jacket very good.
Description -
The Third Twin is a techno-thriller by the British writer Ken Follett and published by Random House publications in 1996. A New York Times bestseller, the book deals with genetic engineering and the nature and nurture debate through the subject of identical twins raised apart.
Plot -
Jeannie Ferrami, Psy.D., is an associate professor and criminality researcher at the fictional Jones Falls University, an Ivy League school in Baltimore, Maryland.[2] She studies the influence of genetics (rather than upbringing) on personality. Her interest in criminal tendencies is influenced by the fact that her father, Pete, is an incarcerated burglar. Financially strained, she sends her Alzheimer's-afflicted mother to live in a sub-par nursing home.
Jeannie's friend Lisa Hoxton is raped during the evacuation of an on-campus locker room. The police determine that the perpetrator was a serial rapist who simulated a fire. Lisa works with sympathetic police Lt. Michelle Delaware to create a facial composite of the suspect. Jeannie meets law student Steven Logan, who participates in her study, prompting mutual attraction. Jeannie's software finds links in medical data and has identified him as the twin of incarcerated murder Dennis Pinker. This seems to confirm Steve's fears that he is unable to control his own violent impulses. Berrington "Berry" Jones, a prominent researcher at JFU, is shocked to see Steve. He contacts his two partners in Genetico, Inc., a medical research company that heavily funds JFU; Jones, Preston Barck, and United States Senator Jim Proust are racist and classist, and apparently believe that the involvement of Steve and Pinker in the study will jeopardize Genetico's $180 million sale to international conglomerate Landsmann, and with it Proust's presidential campaign. Berry disrupts Jeannie's research by alerting the press to the legitimate ethical issues of her software. Soon after, Steve is arrested for Lisa's rape and Lisa picks him out of a lineup, but Jeannie believes his claims of innocence. Steve is released on bail.
Jeannie and Lisa visit Pinker; he is identical to Steve, but had no twin at birth and was born two weeks after Steve, in a different state...