Frankenstein" Book One; Prodigal Son Dean Koontz
Over two hundred years old, the "monster" created by Frankenstein lives in monastery in the high mountains of Tibet. He calls himself Deucalion after the brother of Prometheus; he has studied extensively and has learned to control his rage. He attributes his long life to "something" in the lightning that brought him to life; he traveled the world as a carnival freak and made one good friend who he told his story to. The man sends him a newspaper article showing the face of Victor Frankenstein, still alive in New Orleans and a letter explaining that strange things are happening in New Orleans and they might be connected to Frankenstein who now, uses another name. Deucalion leaves the monastery.In New Orleans, two homicide detectives, Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison are investigating a serial killer who is removing limbs and internal organs from men and women. So far they are perplexed. Various creepy humans and non humans are introduced as they commit heinous crimes and we find Frankenstein, now Victor Helios, still relatively young, extremely wealthy and doing advanced research. He is growing specially structured "non Human" people who come out of a tube wherein their intelligence and knowledge is directly downloaded to their brain. They are fully developed, much stronger and faster than humans and specifically programed for different tasks. Some of "non humans" have been placed city jobs including the Police Department. They are really pitiful creatures, totally controlled and with enate faults (much to the chagrin of Helios) that surface and cause them to question their existence. Helios has also made a few clones that he has inserted into the Clergy. Victor has some kind of a "Huxley" "Brave New World" idea where he intends to do away with the "imperfect" human race and people the world with his own creations. He will create a class system with "Alphas" at the top; with social graces and keen intellect, "Betas" to keep things running and "Omegas" to do the menial and dirty chores.The story tells the adventures of several of Victors creations including his fourth wife (the previous ones had faults and were destroyed), how Carson and Michael work to solve the crimes and the mystery continuing how they meet Deucalion and and learn his history and how Deucalion decides to help them find and attempt to destroy Victor Helios.This was an interesting and suspenseful novel: a little gore but not too bad, good interplay between the main characters and it wets your appetite for the next volume
