The Genesis Flaw

Planning the climax of the story in NYC

What is The Genesis Flaw about?                                

The Genesis Flaw is a fast-paced environmental thriller for our time.

It is the story of a gutsy advertising director with a guilty conscience, called Serena Swift. She takes on the world’s most powerful and corrupt biotech company. She believes their genetically engineered plants and animals are reactivating ancient deadly viruses in people who ingest them, causing an incurable pandemic. She hooks up with a hacker and goes undercover to find evidence. But nobody, repeat nobody, should dare to make a fool of Al R. Bukowski, the Global CEO, and he will do anything to stop her exposing the truth. Serena is chased from Sydney to New York where she has to face Bukowski and his hit man in one last attempt to reveal the company’s deadly secret.

What the critics say...

'L.A. Larkin's The Genesis Flaw combines corporate dystopia and the moral fringes of bio-science to create a savvy, entertaining environmental thriller.' The Age 

'It tells the story of one woman's fight against the corporate greed involved in genetically modified foods, and will have you riding a frantic roller-coaster of plot twists until the final resolution.' Sunday Telegraph Magazine

'This Australian-based debut deserves a place among the big names...a sweaty-palm page-turner with short chapters and loads of action. It's the literary equivalent of The Day After Tomorrow or Lost; exciting, compulsive reading.' Bookseller + Publisher

'Larkin wanted her book to have a gutsy heroine. And she has delivered that with the character of Serena Swift.' North Shore Times

'A thriller that will captivate and continue to engage to the very last turn of the page.' MC Reviews 'Words'

So where did the idea of this story come from?

Some years ago I traveled through eight African countries in a truck, including Zimbabwe, where the fictional genetic experiments take place. On arriving in Australia from the UK, I worked in magazine publishing. I, also, did voluntary work for Greenpeace and this gave me the opportunity to speak to world renowned geneticists who had originally believed that GE food was the way to feed our growing global population. But, when they did their lab tests they became increasingly alarmed by the health and environmental impacts. I have thoroughly researched the subject and engaged with authorities in the field, like Professor Joe Cummins in Canada, Dr Arpad Pusztai in the UK, and Jeffrey M. Smith in the USA. What hit home was:

• The extraordinary power and influence of these global corporations
• The evidence that a gene inserted into a plant that you eat, might move into the DNA of human gut bacteria
• That some scientists believe this has a potential to reactivate the dormant, ancient viruses that we all carry around.

So I created a world in which the ‘what ifs’ became a horrifying reality.

To view the first chapter of The Genesis Flaw please follow this link.

Discussion Points on The Genesis Flaw for Reading Groups and Book Clubs

1. Serena Swift believes a Gene-Asis product caused her father’s lung cancer. At the start of the story, she is torn between doing the right thing (and taking Gene-Asis to Court) and her hugely successful career, which she will lose if she does so. When her father dies, she is wracked with guilt and feels she has failed him. There are many powerful emotions which can drive people to do exceptional things. How powerful is guilt as a spur to action?
    
2. When the adversary of the story, Al R. Bukowski, is a corporate psychopath with extraordinary power and cunning, it was necessary that the protagonist can match his skills at the corporate game. How successful is Serena at this?
    
3. Serena is fired from her job when she is caught snooping around confidential documents. Then, after meeting Fergus McPherson, she goes undercover at Gene-Asis to find evidence that Gene-Asis’ products are hurting people. John Faulkner is a hacker turned high level information security expert. His position at a bank means he cannot help Serena by hacking into Gene-Asis’ files to find the professor’s damning evidence, even though he secretly loves Serena. It is not until John believes Gene-Asis is responsible for Kat’s, and thousands of other people’s, death, that he provides her with the B0r3r key logger. This means he is not directly hacking the Gene-Asis system but he is assisting Serena to hack it. This presents an interesting moral dilemma. When do you think it is acceptable to break the law? When is it right for whistle-blowers to expose a company’s secrets?
    
4. The whole story is presented from the perspective of the central character: Serena Swift. Using this device, the reader learns only what Serena learns. Rarely have I commented as omniscient narrator. This single point of view means that a special bond develops between reader and character because the reader witnesses everything Serena thinks and feels, joining her on her journey of discovery. It also means that the reader can be blind-sided, just as the character is, such as when Bukowski entraps her at his hotel suite or when, at the climax, Bukowski reveals her father was working for Gene-Asis. How do you feel about novels that use a single point of view and opposed to multiple viewpoints?
    
5. The topic of the story is the genetic engineering and plants and animals for human consumption. What are your thoughts on genetically engineered (GE) foods? Do you think they are safe to eat? Are you concerned that once genetically engineered crops are grown, they will contaminate non-genetically engineered varieties, including organic, through wind, birds and bees? Greenpeace tells me that the Australian Government relies solely on corporate data to approve GE foods as safe, and that independent research is not considered. Should this be of concern?
    
6. The attempted rape of Serena by Bukowski, assisted by Darko, is a pivotal moment in the story as it finally reveals Bukowski’s true character and that he knows Serena is spying on him. Their brutal scene is not just about Bukowski re-affirming his power over Serena and taking his revenge on her for making a fool of him, but it is also symbolic of the corporation. Gene-Asis puts profit and power before anything else and the assault on Serena is symbolic of the company’s rapaciousness. How did you respond to Serena’s harrowing ordeal?
    
7. I have deliberately left it unclear at the end of the novel as to whether Bukowski gets his just desserts. His speech at the end about his power to hire the best lawyers, influence the police and sway the media and, as a result, get away with it, begs the question: do large corporations get away with breaking the law?