Genetics professor Michelle Murphy loses her husband under mysterious circumstances and without warning, while their brilliant eight-year-old daughter Avalon, adopted in Kazakhstan, stubbornly believes she is a mutant.As if this were not enough she soon finds herself thrown into the middle of a quickly thickening plot, where the legacy of Genghis Khan meets the hunt for FOXP5, a genetic transcription factor that could herald the dawn of new human species.Initially caught helplessly between well-meaning fellow scientists, the government, and more sinister agents, Michelle, with the help of a host of unlikely heroes, eventually takes control and finds the courage to confront the decision of whether to save human lives or humanity.The scientific and technical aspects underlying the plot-in particular aspects of FOX proteins, genetic mutations, viruses, and cancer, as well as the relation between intelligence and cortical complexity-are introduced and discussed by the authors in an extensive nontechnical appendix.