I picked this book up after Kaity read it. I like mysteries, and this one promised a mystery + DNA. Unfortunately, the author knows little about genetics. It bothered me that the main character wasn’t more suspicious – his boss was in on it the whole time, had tried to have him killed more than once, and he’s shocked at the end when the boss shoots him. It bothered me when they confronted a pair of gorillas in the San Francisco Zoo, and the main character comes up against a silverback. A full grown, dominant, adult male, which he describes as “300 lbs”. Adult males typically weigh at least 25% more than that, and are much stronger than the average adult human male. But the killer was the DNA. Not even misunderstanding genetics, so much as basic inheritance.
DNA testing positively confirmed [the heir] as a direct descendant of Nicholas and Alexandra. [The] mitochondrial genetic structure matched Nicholas’s exactly, even containing the same mutation scientists had found when Nicholas’s bones were identified in 1994. The probability of error was less than a thousandth of 1 percent.
Too bad the author isn’t as error proof. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the maternal line, which I discussed in my Lost Tomb of Jesus post on Freethinkers. The heir, who is described as the great-grandson of Alexie (son of Nicholas II) would have gotten his/her mitochondrial DNA from their mother, not their father, thus making a royal connection impossible to prove in this case. The heir certainly would NOT have the same mtDNA haplotype as Nicholas II, as all the Romanov children would have inherited their mitochondrial DNA from Alexandra. Basic research would have made this clear, but the author failed to do it, which calls into question the rest of the story.
When the manuscript was submitted in 1998, it was rejected by 17 major publishers. Too bad Ballantine accepted it after publication of The Amber Room. I don’t think I’ll be reading anything else by Mr. Berry.
