When the Wind Blows

With such terrifying works as Kiss the Girls and Cat & Mouse, James Patterson breathed new life into the serial-killer genre. His new novel, When the Wind Blows, finds the bestselling author turning his attention to supernatural horror for the first time, giving his fans an imaginative, fast-paced medical thriller that soars as high as his main characters: children who -- thanks to a government experiment -- can actually fly. Plenty of nonmutant humans, both good and evil, abound as well, including kindhearted veterinarian Frannie O'Neill and FBI agent Kit Harrison, who may the only people alive who can uncover the government's demented experiment. Winged kids? Diabolical scientific plots? It's certainly not the usual Patterson fare, but he has little trouble tackling a new subgenre. Fans of John Saul (who had a child-in-grave-danger novel by the same name) and Dean Koontz will particularly appreciate this new direction for the author. Bizarre, suspenseful, and engrossing, When the Wind Blows is poised to be one of this winter's biggest blockbusters.