Genesis Alpha - Rune Michaels

Josh adores his older brother Max, and even though Max is away at college, they still spend time together on the weekends playing Genesis Alpha, an online role playing game similar to Runescape. One Saturday Josh and Max are playing and during a mission Max's character just freezes. A few hours later Max calls and says that he's been arrested for murder. The police come and take all of the computers from the house and Josh is cut off from Genesis Alpha. With the news covering the murder, and the fact that Josh is a designer baby, Josh's parents take him out of school for the time being. A few days after the murder he goes out to the shed and finds Karen, the sister of Rachel, the girl Max murdered, there. It takes a few days, but Josh eventually trusts Rachel and between the two of them that they find out the truth. They get onto another of Max's characters and find all this information on other girls that Max has collected while playing Genesis Alpha. Josh goes to the police with the information, and when he visits Max the next day in prison, Max knows that Josh has betrayed him. Meanwhile Rachel refuses to go home, and is always debating with him wheather he will turn out evil like his brother or not. Josh was made to save his brother who was dying from cancer, and some of the stem cells were taken from Josh and put into Max. Rachel believes that it was those stem cells that made him murder her sister.
A really good fast moving novel that goes into the age old debate of wheather or not someone can be born good or evil, or is it our actions that decide that. Also, the medical ethics behind creating a life to save another, and letting the second life live.

T.B. 7/26/07