The Handashi Plague

Mariko, a young woman in San Francisco, wonders when she sees the new president make life miserable for everyone a daily basis, “How can someone be so cruel?” Through a series of events she finds herself in a battle of words with him. At the same time she finds the answer to her question: It’s in his DNA and all those like him. It was put there fifty thousand years ago by our cousins, the Neanderthals. But we got even back then by infecting them with a pathogen that eventually killed them off.

When the body of a Neanderthal is found in the arctic tundra, that pathogen is still viable. Mariko acquires a sample. She learns that people with a certain amount of Neanderthal DNA are wired for cruelty and, are susceptible to the pathogen. Ergo: the pathogen will only kill bad people. She asks herself: Should I release it and let it rid the world of cruelty?

The book is a political thriller, sprinkled with archeological intrigue and a dash of sci-fi; plausible at every turn.