Almost Human-A Novel by Kenneth L. Decroo

Description

Almost Human begins in the 1930s in a storm off the coast of Africa on a sinking Soviet research vessel that is carrying a secret cargo of mysterious creatures—the results of Russian experimentation with cross-breeding chimps and humans. This sets into motion a series of adventures that span five decades and several continents. An array of characters from the worlds of circuses, chimpanzee research labs and motion pictures are swept up into the search for these creatures.

            In the 1970s, Drs. Ken Turner and Fred Savage, a couple of young research scientists, and their signing chimp, Mike, team up with an aging animal trainer, Lester, and his old chimp, Girlie, as well as a stuntman, midget Bobby Waiter to follow rumors of chimp/human hybrids that may have survived the shipwreck. Turner and Savage want to study them. 

            But Deter Vandusen and his group of unscrupulous government operatives want to use the creatures for less altruistic purposes. They put everything at risk in their pursuit of Turner’s group. They will stop at nothing to find the creatures first. 

            The chase takes Turner and Savage from their research facility for communicating with chimpanzees in Reno, Nevada to the Wild Animal Training Center to a treacherous little circus in Mexico, to the wilds of the Belgian Congo as they collect the clues, meet fascinating characters, and fight to survive danger from all sides, which leads inevitably to threats against their research and their lives.