Elliott immediately liquidates his investment portfolio of 10 million dollars -- pretty impressive for someone has been making $125,000 a year. Two weeks later he dies when the power drill he is using hits an electrical cable in his home den. Elliott leaves behind, in his girlfriend’s living room, his luggage, a briefcase chock full of money, and tickets to Paris. The girlfriend, Liz Foster, shares her grief with Alexandra Tynan, who is in ProvLife’s actuarial department.

Alex, who lives for numbers and their preciseness, begins to find that the numbers don't seem to make sense. Her investigation leads her into a world of deception, fraud, and murder. Large amounts of money appear to be funneled monthly to certain senior vice-presidents. Why does the company have all this extra cash, and are the mounting deaths really accidental?

The plot alone drives this book and Alex inevitably soon becomes a target, although cleverly, a target on several levels. And the book does raise some important questions, such as whether (or to what extent) life and health insurers should be permitted to examine the genes of their potential customers….and discriminate accordingly.

But the issues in The Policy are framed far more cogently than the personalities of the characters. For the most part, the characters seem to be there simply to advance the story, and not to interact with each other in any significant way. They are largely defined by their relationship with their employer, ProvLife, and their role in the company. Sadly, the distance the author maintains from his characters makes it difficult for the reader to identify with them or their problems.

Lynch builds his suspense within a diabolically clever plot and sustains the tension in a credible way throughout. But the dialogue is not particularly inspiring, and the characters are weak. Notwithstanding this, the writing is technically good; the moral dilemmas raised by the author will continue to haunt the reader well after the book is completed. For this reason alone the book is worth reading.

--Thea Davis