Upgrade

Upgrade is a 2022 novel by Blake Crouch. It is his tenth stand-alone novel, published three years after Summer Frost (2019). Upgrade was #6 on the New York Times Best Sellers list in the first week of publication in the category of Hardcover Fiction. Background The protagonist is the fictional Logan Ramsay, an agent of the Gene Protection Agency or GPA. Action takes place largely in the United States in the aftermath of 'The Great Starvation', a period of worldwide famine and death by starvation, when gene editing has become a federal crime. The Gene Protection Act outlawed gene manipulation and research and allowed draconian surveillance of citizens. Biologists who had worked in the field were now unemployed or in prison. Those that were free were tracked down and harshly interrogated by the GPA. Plot As the novel begins, we learn about "The Great Starvation," an event caused by biologist Dr. Miriam Ramsay, who released genetically modified locusts in an attempt to improve rice crops in a province of China. An unforeseen consequence of this act was that the genetically modified virus the locusts carried spread worldwide and interfered with seed germination. At least two hundred million people died, and gene manipulation became a crime over the entire globe. Dr. Ramsay committed suicide and scientists involved with the project, including Dr. Ramsay's son, Logan, were imprisoned. The story follows the protagonist, Logan Ramsay, after his release from prison. Logan found employment as an agent of the GPA, where he had a talent for tracking down fugitive geneticists, some of whom were his personal friends or those of his mother. In one such operation, in Denver, he ends up walking into a booby trap. The explosion penetrates Logan's hazmat suit and knocks him unconscious. When he regains consciousness he is in an isolation ward, where he is monitored daily by Dr. Singh. Initially, Dr. Singh seems concerned about the pain Logan is experiencing. But gradually the doctor admits that he is monitoring Logan since he may have been exposed to a biological agent due to the explosion in Denver. The first sign that Logan is undergoing physiological changes is a bone density tests that shows Logan's bones more than twice as dense as that of a typical male. After a week, when Logan's fever is broken, Dr. Singh allows Logan's fourteen-year-old daughter Ava to visit him while wearing full hazmat gear.