Science Fiction Novel

I have been looking for this book for years!

I think it has green skull diagrams set on a black cover, and the title is a one letter word, from what I remember.
The main character has a son in a wheelchair but it turns out that his son was just pretending. In fact, the whole book is about how neanderthals have been co-existing with homo sapiens all along. The neanderthals have some telepathic ability and can speak normally but cannot create music.
In the end, it is revealed that there is some sort of airborne virus/super-flu going around that will kill off homo sapiens.

Please, someone help me find it!

Thank you so much!!

I'm not familiar with this, but the details remind me of something Greg Bear might write. Do any of his works ring a bell with you?

Thank you! found it!!

What is it?

Sounds like Darwin's Radio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Radio

Interesting -- Darwin's Radio is the only Greg Bear I've read, and the OP's description did not remind me of that book at all. What I remember about it, having read it many years ago, was the multiple pregnancies and new human evolution element. I guess we all get something different out of books :-)

sparemethecensor,

Darwin's Radio is an atypical Greg Bear novel. It's his attempt to do a thriller of sorts. I don't think it succeeded for him. So you might like some other book of his better.

>7 dukedom_enough:

That's interesting to hear. I will check out some of his other works.

It apparently did well enough to have a sequel Darwin's Children :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Children

Hi everyone. Always check if a poster is new. I asked what the title and author was in a private message, hoping they would comment here, but they posted a reply back, so here's the answer from the original poster:

"The book I was looking for is "Waiting" by Frank M. Robinson."

Frank M Robinson, Waiting

John Darnton wrote a book called Neanderthal with a similar premise: telepathic Neanderthals who've been hiding in a mountain range for the past 30.000 years. I remember it as an ok book but nothing special.