The Crime Gene

Your blood is your verdict. Dr. Briar Birch, a brilliant but disillusioned geneticist in her fifties, lives a quiet life as a Genetic Cleaner-someone who secretly scrubs incriminating DNA from crime scenes to prevent the government from sentencing innocent people. Her world shatters when she's arrested, not for her work, but because a long-dormant aggression gene from her great-grandfather-a notorious, unsolved serial killer-has been activated in her system by a new environmental toxin. Agent Marcus Johnson, a cynical Recovery Agent for the Genetic Debt program, is sent to process her. He's a man who also carries a dark gene but has learned to suppress it with sheer discipline. When Briar reveals the toxin plot and her own innocence, Marcus realizes the system is broken. They go on the run, a man-on-the-run romance blossoming as they work to clear Briar's name. They must find the source of the toxin before the government sentences Briar for a crime she hasn't committed-and prevent a terrifying wave of enforced criminality across the city.