At its heart is the sinister warning Mary Shelley issued in the Introduction to her own Frankenstein: 'Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.' Who was Joe Richter? Anglo-Russian, intelligent, recently sacked as a translator and lobbyist, assaulted and branded because he had translated an unusually sensitive historical document. For adherents of a violent neo-Soviet cult he was a cheat and so much bourgeois filth. For a wealthy American businessman it could mean big money. For a Russian oligarch it could mean enormous political power. For his mother it could mean happiness. For his girlfriend it could mean serious danger. For Joe himself it meant that he had to be a new Frankenstein. Has he really been gifted with the power to be a Frankenstein, to create new life? Does his DNA or bloodline relate him to a recently deceased relative who was supposed to have such powers? Aided by the CIA, he flies to California to perform an act of revitalization, only to find that what this could mean for world politics also has a deeply troubling personal meaning for Joe himself.