Waste of (Paper - John McCabe)

Member Name: fluffypup

Product:	Paper - John McCabe
Date:	23/11/00 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Intelligent observations about science and genetics mixed within a crime thriller

Disadvantages: Written in a report format;, a bit slow going; dark in places; few laughs; and a bit unconvincing - maybe its just me!

Paper is the second book written by author John McCabe, his first being the highly acclaimed Stickleback. Whether Paper gets highly claimed is seriously open to question. McCabe’s background is in DNA and is a fully qualified geneticist. Paper concentrates on his experience in a scientific background. The book is based on his own personal observations as a scientist and working in a scientific community. Add elements of investigation, the police, DNA, drugs and murder suspects, white Astra van and you have Paper!

Paper’s main character is Darren who ‘works’ (note the inverted commas) in a medical diagnostics lab. His life is pretty boring. He spends most of endless time making experiments and getting nowhere. Bored with his work life he devises ways to enhance it. Schemes include Make Work More Interesting, strategic shaving, wearing odd clothes, avoiding eye contact and all forms of communication with the Tea Break Terminator, experimenting with class A drugs ordered legitimately via the company, carrying out experiments with all forms of his bodily fluids and giving them scientific labels to his fluids such as BL02D, 5PIT and Ph1(LeGm). You don’t want to know the other one! He’s in love with Neuro Girl, jealous of Winning System, can’t understand Mormon Dawn (religion and science do they mix?) and has little respect for his boss, Graham.

As Darren increases his experiments on the hard drugs, his work life becomes more difficult. This culminates in him eventually sacked. At which point, Darren tries to piece together what’s left of his life. Sam his ex-Uni and house mate supplies him with a stolen computer, which contains a database or “paper” with a DNA profiling evidence of suspects caught up in a police investigation into murder! Darren with little else to do, tries to decipher the evidence and turns investigator. His cause isn’t helped when the database and computer files become
corrupt, not all the evidence is complete (somebody stole the computer from the police!) and some of the profiles are a bit dubious. Darren soon discovers that there is a possibility that a few of his old work colleagues maybe contained on the database. A number of people are highlighted under the category of “high risk”. Are these Darren’s old work colleagues or not? There are ‘anomalies’ in some of the DNA profiling. He’s fazed by some of the results of the DNA sampling and starts fresh investigations and tests. Is one of Darren’s colleagues the murderer? Why is the DNA sampling strange? Why did they do it? Who is the man tailing Darren in the white Astra van? All these questions are revealed if you read the book.

What I did enjoy about Paper was that you could relate to the characters in the book to those who you work with. Working in a scientific/engineering research establishment these characters were real. Everywhere has a Tea Break Terminator, Winning System, Sam and Darren. I liked McCabe’s look at the world of DNA and religion. Should someone with strong religious be working as a geneticist? Is DNA foolproof? McCabe explored these topics rather well. There was suspense as the investigations deepened which was good but it wasn’t gripping.

I didn’t enjoy how this book was written. It was presented in a report type format. The main chapters were Abstract, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Conclusion and Discussion. Was it clever? I personally didn’t think so. Some subchapters often lasting only 2 pages on the questioning or review of science intermingled within the plot. This often wasn’t necessary, detracted from the plot and became rather annoying.

Paper started off very slowly and became very dark and depressing as Darren’s life turned to drugs. It only really started to pick up once Darren started to investigate the DNA database. It seems ver
y implausible that someone sacked from work and an ex-druggie would want to investigator a murder. Most people would have wiped the police database, formatted the hard disk and played computer games until they got a new job. This plot was straight out of Quincy or Dick Van Dyke’s Investigation Murder. Both TV programmes are an instant turn off and unfortunately so was this book. I only finished reading this book because I bought it.

I would only recommend this book if you have a scientific background of genetics or DNA. Otherwise stay away. McCabe’s first effort of writing in Stickleback maybe highly acclaimed but I serious doubt that this will be. It wasn’t for me.

Paper by John McCabe
ISBN 0-552-99874-5
RRP £6.99

Summary: