The God Gene — John Evans

If there is a God Gene in humans, could it be responsible for the propensity toward religion, our fascination with the unknown, our appreciation of beauty, and our sense of justice, morality, and love? Like a telescope opens the heavens to scientists, the God Gene could be the unique tool that opens the human mind to things beyond oneself.

If the God Gene were discovered and its chemistry were mastered, how would the world%u2019s great religions react? Could this knowledge be used as an approach to God, as a rude combination of the apple of Eden, the Arc of the Covenant, and the Holy Grail? Or would this discovery reduce God to nothing more than a genetic characteristic? What would religious zealots, terrorist nations, and greedy pharmaceutical companies do with this knowledge? Could the scientific field of Genetics be the most likely source of the next great change in human thinking?

The adventure begins when three best friends, Spencer, Katherine, and Oz, share a near-death experience that inspires a fascination with the idea of destiny. Their lives are haunted with the belief that fate has reserved an important event for them. A different kind of love triangle holds the friends together until the fateful day when the secret of the God Gene is discovered by Oz, a research scientist at the University of Colorado genetics lab. The secret is inadvertently revealed while Spencer and Oz are on a motorcycle cruise in Mexico. Their misadventures with Mexican authorities, the red-hat ladies, unscrupulous thieves, and a Mazateca Indian Shaman who introduces them to yet another pathway to God, are followed by an unending assault on their quiet lives by several foreign agents bent on stealing the new genetic code. The mystery and intrigue reach a crescendo when kidnapping and extortion force the threesome into a violent confrontation with global consequences where their destiny is finally fulfilled in an explosive finish.

With a tightly woven tapestry of cutting edge genetics research and industrial espionage, the Middle East and the Vatican, motorcycles and mysticism, love and sex, chaos and violence, readers will enjoy a science mystery that reminds one of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and Carlos Castaneda. The personalities of the characters support a great dialog about everything from Philosophy to gender issues and add a strong sense of humor to an otherwise tense story of good friends overcoming insurmountable difficulties.