Useful Idiots

By Jan Mark

     It's 2255 and the world has undergone enormous changes. With the melting of the polar ice caps, many coastal cities and towns, like London or Venice, have been buried beneath the seas. Countries have banded together and no longer acknowledge where their borders once stood. In such a time and place as this it seems peculiar that archaeology would be a controversial topic of study, but controversial it is. With the discovery of an ancient skeleton just off the coast of what was once Britain (now considered the RDI: Rhine Delta Islands), several opposing interests come into play. There's Merrick, the graduate student, whose interest in the skeleton leads him to discover why exactly its existence is such a hot topic. And then there are the Oysters, a group of Aboriginal Britains who claim the skeleton was found on their land and is legally theirs. As Merrick follows the skeleton into Oyster land and learns more about the history of this strange separate people, he begins to discover a conspiracy behind the skeleton's recovery. A conspiracy that may well lead to his own death, before long. Jan Mark has penned a dark futuristic thriller that will keep the reader on the edge of his or her seat. The book's careful plotting considers everything from the nature of death to the implications of the Euro. And while the ending will leave some readers howling for more, it successfully brings to a close a tightly woven fantasy. One of the best and most disturbing teen novels to hit the market in years.