Author: Kevin Guilfoile

Publisher: Knopf (March 1, 2005)

ISBN: 1400043085

In Kevin Guilfoile’s first novel, Cast of Shadows, he centers it around a spiral of “what ifs” in an alternative now that cloning is allowed and is viewed with the same fevered emotion as abortion. Dr. Davis Moore, a fertility doctor who specializes in reproductive cloning, is so distraught over the brutal rape and murder of his seventeen year old daughter that when a vial of DNA from the unsolved crime finds its way into his possession, he decides to find answers on his own. Rather than clone his murdered daughter, Dr. Moore clones the man who killed her for his attempt a closure.  But in the end you wonder if he’s really willing to pay the price for that knowledge.

As we the reader follow along this path with Dr. Moore, Guilfoile poses a very valid question that I find very relevant to the cloning debate: what are you duplicating when you duplicate human life?  Even though this is an “alternate reality” Guilfoile still makes sure to add relative points that are occurring in this “reality”.

There’s a whole sub plot about an online game that society has become obsessed about that very closely parallels the online gaming community that seems to be growing more mainstream every day. So not only are you as the reader posed with questions such as what are the boundaries that must be adhered to with the potential of reproductive cloning and just how fine of a line is it between online gaming for relaxation to that of an overwhelming obsession?

I will have to say that Kevin Guilfoile has truly done his homewrk where suspense novels are concerned. He takes the reader down a path of just enough twists and turns with enough conviction that you don’t stop to question some of the incidental events that occur.

The large cast of players was treated with the same level of respect and thought, no matter if they were a main protagonist or a somewhat incidental character to the plot. Since this story takes place over a number of years, you do get a sense of time passing with motivations adjusted, initial emotion fueled actions rethought due to the dulling of the passed time and few unheard voices of reason whispered along the edges. To me, in the end everyone involved reached some level of the same conclusion - some secrets are best left unknown.