Upgrade

Upgrade by Blake Crouch

A novel about gene-editing in humans. Like the future isn't terrifying enough already. 

Logan Ramsey is an agent for the Gene Protection Agency. Gene editing became illegal after scientist Miriam Ramsay, Logan's mother, believing she could increase food production in poorer countries, infected crops with modified genes she'd engineered. Crops died, famine followed, and 200 million people starved to death.

Logan, who'd been working in her lab at the time, went to prison for two years for his part in the disaster and now works with the agency to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. In the course of a routine investigation (if any of this can be called routine) he is infected with unknown genes; in essence, his DNA is hacked, and no one knows what it will do to him or what he might become. He's detained in a lab and subjected to continual testing, but someone breaks him out and they join forces to find out who did this to him and why. Logan has to cope with the frightening changes taking place in his body and mind, and face a revelation about his mother and how it has led to him being in this precarious situation.   

It's written in the abrupt, almost in-your-face style I've seen in other detective novels and I can't say I like that kind of writing, but there were moments that stood out, like this one for its great imagery:

"A violence of black skies, wind, and rain - the final nail being hammered through the heart of autumn."

And this one, simply because it's exciting to learn such things:

"While there are approximately twenty-five thousand known genes, the variance of their interactions approaches infinity. And beyond the known genes, our genome contains numerous control regions and so-called junk DNA, which aren't junk at all but a collective, self-adjusting web of systems, evolved under the selective pressure of existence for more than three billion years. It added up to a system of unimaginable complexity, one where any single change - let alone thousands - might express itself in dozens of unforeseen ways."

Both the plot and the science were mesmerizing. I stayed up too late reading, needing to find out what would happen to him. If the concept of hacking DNA peaks your interest, I think you'll like this chilling, but believable, sci-fi story - a story that may not be fiction much longer and perhaps isn't even now.