The Killing Gene is an epic adventure full of mystery that will keep you at edge of your seat until the very end. Great characters made this intriguing story a must-read.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I received this book as an ARC from Netgally in exchange for an honest review a while back. Unfortunately, I soon stopped reviewing books as I lost the taste for it. I am now picking it back up, and am reading the books I didn't get to.

As per Netgalley this book is summarized as follows: "When a young archaeologist goes missing in the Congo basin, Professor Randolph Harkness and troubled tearaway Ross McCartney go in search of her only to stumble upon a conspiracy to conceal ancient horrors lost to the passage of time. Evading spies and trained killers, can they expose this cover-up in time or will they be buried with it? An unputdownable thriller, The Killing Gene reveals the story of our species, the paradox of the modern mind and our innate predilection for murder..."

The plot sounded intriguing, and it was mainly good, until about Chapter 83 (about 85% into the book). Then it just took a nose dive. Don't get me wrong, there were issues also with the first 82 chapters, but I wasn't rolling my eyes until Chapter 83.

Let's talk about the positives: it was action packed, an interesting premise, and the writing wasn't bad.

What could have been done better:

1) There were so many characters introduced (only to die in the same chapter) that it got a little confusing and tedious. Why did we need to see each person die?

2) the reason why all these people were getting murdered, why the main characters were being chased, was so ridiculous I had to laugh out loud. "That Brian Finer was investigating the Neanderthal extinction and stumbled upon their lack of New Brain. That this gave you a gateway into the human psyche that allowed you to manipulate public opinion like nothing else before or since."

Essentially: since humans have "Old Brain" (a word that the author used more than 50 times in the last 15% of the book) politicians can plant concepts into the brain that make the public act in the way they want, or vote a certain way etc. I mean, everyone knows this already. It's not a secret that sometimes politicians manipulate the public. I just couldn't understand why this was the reason for the whole adventure or that so many people were dead...at the end of the book, the UK government collapsed because this "secret" was exposed...huh?

3) the characters seemed to jump around from country to country from one page to another. One page they were in some remote place in Afghanistan, the next page they were in England, with no connector paragraph. This was annoying.

Until I got to the last 15% of the book, I was sure that the ending would be different. Even the title "The Killing Gene" led me to believe that there was a gene that humans had that made us killers and that maybe the government was doing some experimentation on this gene or something -- I definitely wasn't expecting what it actually was.

The above being said, I was entertained, so I gave it a 3 stars. As for a recommendation to read it, I guess this would depend on whether you had a lot already on your TBR list. If yes, I would probably read the others first.

Man's Inhumanity to Man

I've been telling folks about this book because, although it is written as a thriller, it relies heavily on real research, then goes on to speculate about the true nature of man and his origins. As an adventure it is gripping; as an indictment of modern man it is stunning. The common perception is we just outbred the other limbs on the evolution bush, whose bloodlines seem to have petered out (although most of us seem to have 2-4% Neanderthal DNA); but the author would have us believe otherwise.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This had the promise of being a great adventure as a young woman is captured in the Congo in her search for historical truth. Unfortunately,I had a difficult time following the many points of views and was lost with the heavy historical references. While the topic of language and human origins is interesting this author did not do a good job in making this digestible to the average reader.

An excellent, intellectually permissive read! This book took me a while to finish solely because I was so interested in the topics that I found myself diving into my own research. It wasn’t so inundated with facts that it was confusing or dry, but also wasn’t overly simplified. I found the story itself quite perplexing. It may in some ways be a bit politically polarizing for some, and the grand conclusion may not be dramatically profound, but it was an educating and well researched read nonetheless.

Though it has gotten good reviews, this title was not my cup of tea. I found the source of language interesting, as well as the speculation about human beings. That being said, the book seemed to be a disjointed mishmash of one murder after another.

Sadly, this title did not hold my interest, and I cannot recommended it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free digital copy of this title to review from Net Galley.

#TheKillingGene#NetGalley

Archeology, science, jungles, travel, political games and the government. What isn’t to love. Although the writing style wasn’t a style I am used to. This was a high stakes adventure rescue mission and I loved every minute.

Very interesting book, concept, and journey. I thought overall it was a good book. My only problem is they traveled the world at times from page to page. It was crazy how fast things happened and how quickly the story progressed. Additionally, there were a TON of characters that I caused some confusion at times. I think it’s a good story with a good moral value.

Thank you to Netgalley, E.M. Davey, and Duckworth for providing me with and advanced reading copy.

A heart-racing adventure into the dark heart of human origins

When a young archaeologist goes missing in the Congo basin, Professor Randolph Harkness and troubled tearaway Ross McCartney go in search of her only to stumble upon a conspiracy to conceal ancient horrors lost to the passage of time.

Evading spies and trained killers, can they expose this cover-up in time or will they be buried with it? An unputdownable thriller, The Killing Genereveals the story of our species, the paradox of the modern mind and our innate predilection for murder...



My thoughts

Rating:4

For a thriller it starts out slowly but the more you read the more it pick ups and the story starts to come to live . And you can tell that the author put a lot of time and effort as well energy in doing the amount of research into linguistics, prehistory, anthropology and the classics , which makes this story even more interesting by bringing to life various theories around these subjects while cleverly weaving them into his characters lives , in some ways it was like I was reading something James Rollins or even Michael Crichton would write , as well as Dean Koontz , with that said I want to think Netgalley for letting me read and review it .

I enjoyed the plot of this book. The number of characters had me flipping back and forth to keep track of who was who. This book kept me at the edge of my seat from the beginning. It’s a quick read packed with action and intrigue. Many thanks to NetGalley for access to the ARC.

This one was slightly outside of my reading parameters, as much as I enjoy thrillers, I usually go for the murder mystery dark psychological variety of those. This one was straight up adventure thriller, which makes me think of Cussler and the like, but (yey and kudos) the quality was well above the crap Cussler puts out. In fact, this was actually a very smart book disguised as a dumb adventure thriller. One imagines to make it more sellable. But seriously, the author (serious guy himself, an investigative journalist, traveled far and wide, including the remote and by all accounts inhospitable locations featured in this book) threw so much into this one, it was a veritable kitchen sink of a plot. Not only that, he manages to throw in a lot of my favorite things…linguistics, anthropology, prehistoric times, Neanderthals, exotic far away locales, psychology. I mean, so much awesomeness, so many great ideas…all wrapped up into the blandly shiny genre trappings, such as two dimensional characters, cliched action and romance, shadowy government conspiracies, spy games and so on. So yeah, pick and choose, but basically there is a lot to like here. Enough to forgive the things you don’t. First and foremost, the research is top grade. Smart, well explained and all from legitimate sources, it’s absolutely fascinating. The Old Brain/ New Brain thing is, puns aside, mind blowing and should be well known. It isn’t going to change the world, that sort of optimistic silliness is only for the books, but still…it’s good, necessary even, to know. The linguistic aspect in the book is fascinating, in fact the book starts off in Africa with some of its most remote, isolated tribes, with a search for the origins of a single universal language, before it all went to Babel. That alone might have been its own book. But then a classic stereotype of a professorial character gets involved, you know, middle aged, single, very British, staid, but with an exciting past. And now he’s on a quest and, what originally seemed like a mere disappearance, soon proves to be a gateway into a global conspiracy with a potential to explain most behaviors and choices, including the reprehensible global voting choices of recent past. The professor will, of course, not have to do it all alone, but assistance or not, this will be a seriously exhausting and dangerous undertaking, all across the world, while international assassins are out to get him. Objectively, I do get the appeal of this sort of fiction, it’s exciting and fun, albeit on purely superficial levels. Subjectively, it doesn’t quite sing for me, too much action, too many clichés, too convoluted, too preposterously grandiose, too many dumbed down explanations, too many conspiracies…many of the same reasons I don’t care for spy fiction. There is just too much going on to leave time and energy for other things (things I care about), like character building or imbuing it all with some degree of realism. I mean, that ending alone, it’s silver screen picture perfect complete overkill version of a cliched happy ending. This entire thing…it’s a movie, it really is. With the right cast, maybe even an A list movie. But…but…all that aside, it is still considerably smarter than most movies or books of this genre and that makes it worth the time. Not that it takes that long to get through, it’s a fairly quick read, it’s paced according to its genre and is only 300 pages. So yeah, the ideas are there, the research is there, although funnily enough, some of it was becoming dated as the novel was being finished, just because there’s so much going on right now with Neanderthal research and every discovery has the potential to revolutionize the field as we know it or at least push back the timeline considerably. The rest of the book is pretty formulaic for what it is. If you’re into the same kitchen sink ingredients as I am or just a thriller fan, you’ll most likely enjoy this book. If I had to describe it, it reminded me of a really smart girl at a party who dumbs herself down to be more popular and approachable. But then again, to some readers this might be Aphrodite incarnate. Who knows. Thanks Netgalley.

A fast paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested.
Good characterisation, well written and researched, at times I found it a little confusing but an entertaining read overall.

The Killing Gene by E.M. Davey is a fast paced political, action thriller with some intriguing details about a variety of topics including linguistics, prehistory and anthropology interwoven within the text. Somewhat confusing at times but a very interesting and entertaining read.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

The Killing Gene is the kind of book you may be a little unsure of going in but once you’ve started it’s bloody hard to put down! A huge amount of research has obviously gone into this story and not only is it an enjoyable thriller, it’s left me feeling refreshed.
Make sure you free up the rest of your day before starting!
A strong 5/5

The Killing Gene is a fantastic book that has twists and turns. I could not put it down. Great characters and storyline.

This is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of novel - it had so much happening, and I looooved it! Clear writing, an easy-going globe-trotting former spy guy and his group race to unravel a huge mystery that will have an enormous impact worldwide, on the whole of humanity. I didn’t want it to end. A wonderful thriller!
#TheKillingGene #NetGalley

I'm not usually a big fan of this type of books but I found this one enjoyable and entertaining.
It's well written, well researched, engrossing and the plot is full of twists and turns.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I would like to preface this review with the fact that I have little knowledge of the subjects in this book e.g. linguistics, prehistory, anthropology etc.

This book was definitely a page turner even is some of the subjects and topics went over my head at times. It is extremely clear that the author has completed an immense amount of research which gives the book a strong sense of reality.

This is not a book I would typically pick up but did enjoy it. I definitely think that readers who have an interest in the subjects mentioned above would appreciate and enjoy the story and in-depth detail of the subjects.