Camden's Knife, Near-Future Novel, Just Published by RAB

"Tense, involving, Camden’s Knife is a smart near-future thriller with a startlingly real sense of plausibility. In a world that's falling apart, can one ordinary person make a difference? Tremendous stuff! Kavanagh can write!”

–      Hugo Award-winner David Wingrove, author of the Chung Kuo series and the Roads To Moscow trilogy

Riverdale Avenue Books is thrilled to publish Camden’s Knife by John Patrick Kavanagh, an up-dated version of the science fiction classic Sixers that best-selling author Scott Turow called “Terrific.”

In this near future pop-culture-filled dystopian novel, America is under the dark cloud of a new envirus, Camden-Young’s Disease. Unleashed five years earlier from an explosion at a genetic engineering laboratory, the stealth envirus has laid waste to 74% of Caucasians between puberty and their early thirties while the other 26% are mysteriously immune. From flu-like attacks to excruciating fevers, hair loss, blindness, insanity and death, there is no cure; the only respite available being the Febrifuge Blue line of pharmaceuticals controlled by the Southern United Enterprises conglomerate used to treat symptoms of the target population while also used recreationally by the fortunate Sixers.

Dr. Arthur Camden, dispatched from the company a year earlier by the powerful and merciless executive Trisha Lane, believes a formula for a cure (which would destroy SUE’s incredibly lucrative money machine) is contained in a pair of notebooks seized when he was fired. For their return, Camden’s willing to exchange four ounces of the otherwise unobtainable distillate CY6A4 he purloined just before he was dismissed that Lane craves to manufacture an experimental potion of unimaginable potential.

David Stonetree, Lane’s new administrative assistant, becomes the middleman between the players in this high-stakes chess match, spurred on by the fact that his partner Sharon has just been diagnosed as a CYD-positive. Torn between Lane’s seductive wiles and Camden’s selfless decency he finally takes a stand that could cost him his job and possibly his and Camden’s lives.

John Patrick Kavanagh revisits his masterful novel Sixers, updating it to perhaps 20 years from our present-day, adding compelling new characters, situations, fascinating details and an even more powerful climax.

“I loved this book when I read it 25 years ago, and it has stayed with me ever since,” said Publisher Lori Perkins. “Give me a virus novel with social implications and I am

sold.”

The story continues in Kavanagh’s sequel, Weekend At Prism, with many of the characters returning in Las Vegas for the $100M World Standoff! Tournament and “the biggest rock concert ever held in the history of the Universe.”

Praise for Sixers:

“Terrific,”  - Scott Turow, best-selling author of Presumed Innocent and Burden of Proof

“(a) well-wrought debut…both engaging and fun to read.” – Publisher’s Weekly 

“A stunning debut novel…skillfully crafted…gripping and disturbing…an important new voice.” – Rave Reviews

“A writer to reckon with…engrossing and well-written.” - West Coast Review of Books

“This is a brave, wonderful book.” – Arthur Shay, Speaking Volumes