6th Extinction: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins

I know I read at least one book by Rollins before we started this blog, and five years ago, East Coast Don reviewed Rollins’ book, Map of Bones, but then he never got back to reading Rollins again. I got 35% into this one before I quit. 6^th Extinction: A Sigma Force Novel is a thriller about a deadly pathogen that has been released, either accidentally or by sabotage, from a clandestine lab near Mono Lake in California. The action quickly jumps around the world, from California to Antarctica to D.C. It is action-packed, but I found it mostly unbelievable and found the characters to be flat, stereotypic, uninteresting. This one does not even qualify for my minimum standard of being an airplane book. If I bought this to take with me on a flight from LAX to JFK, I'd be bored and roaming the aisles before we reached Colorado. Rollins is a prolific writer and obviously has a huge number of fans, but given the many authors who I do enjoy, I’m disinclined to revisit his writing in the near future.

Map of Bones by James Rollins

As I recall WC Don has read some of Rollins' work. This was my 2nd. forgot to post this so I'm working from fragile memory. by titles, most of Rollins' books seem to be along the lines of DaVinci Code, a detective story with clues to things in the past.

A grizzly killing occurs in a Cologne cathedral and the bones of the Magi, the 3 Wise Men, have been stolen. An Italian detective and her priest uncle start the investigation, but specific clues and coincidences call in the SigmaForce, a super secret group of brainy US operatives, to join in. The race to find the killers and the reason behind the slaughter takes them from Cologne to Milan to Rome to Cairo to Alexandria and back to Italy, all in the span of maybe a week or so. They search for the secret to some unspeakable power that is somehow connected to secrets underneath the Vatican and elsewhere based on clues and riddles from mysterious alchemists from centuries past leading them on this chase. All the while trying to find the source of power before the bad guys get there.

This moves along a breakneck speed with this group's seemingly limitless storehouse of knowledge, especially the priest. Most all the Sigma operatives have technical PhDs to go along with martial arts and firearm skills. I found it almost cute how nearly each chapter ended with it's own cliffhanger. "Quietly he pulled the sack out from under the casket and turned to find a silencer pointed at his cheek." next chapter....that sort of thing

not bad. Rollins' books will keep your attention as you whiz around the world and try to follow the logic of the crew as they hash out clues...maybe I'll take another Rollins book on this next trip. may not be in the power rotation, but will certainly fill in gaps when I need a good read.

East Coast Don