Bailey Williams is one of the world's top supermodels who is predictably moving into the Hollywood movie scene. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous, she also has an incredible I.Q. and began college in her mid-teens. Now the very rich Bailey has decided she wants a baby – but minus the stretch marks and potential health risks caused by an earlier car crash. So the brainy beauty searches for someone who can discreetly investigate a rumor she has heard: there is a doctor out there, a Dr. Post, who can successfully perform out-of-womb births.

Enter Ross Channing, the discreet investigator and newly certified lawyer who agrees to take the case. The doctor involved in this research last practiced in Mexico some thirty years ago, but no problem: Ross used to live in Mexico and has friends who will research the rumor for him.

Young Ross is healthily handsome, available, and interested in both the beautiful Bailey and her fifty thousand dollar bonus. He also has a father in New Orleans who is distant and too busy for his son. But not to worry: he is one of the country's premier neurosurgeons and guess what? A friend of his knew Dr. Post. And even more conveniently, the neurosurgeon dad lives near the center of all the story's action – which will come in very handy when all the various murders and attempted murders begin.

And there are a lot of deaths. Seems the children wrought from Dr. Post's earlier experiments have some problems, like killing people when they get angry. Just what exactly has Dr. Post (with his dreary wife Mary) created with his fish-tank fetuses? How come they seem so fond of razor blades and gory fires?

As Ross digs deeper into the history of these experiments, he begins to have some bad feelings. But of course, he ends up personally involved – in fact, a little too personally involved when it comes to the embryo. The storyline doesn't really build to a climax, but rather gets more violent and more convoluted.

Unlike a good Michael Crichton thriller, which asks the reader to think about the morality of the issue presented, Embryo simply puts it out there. And a gaping hole at the end (nobody seems to have heard about DNA testing) may leave readers irritated. While there are some interesting moments in the book, don't expect anything original or compelling here.

--Martha Moore