Rebecca Cantrell The World Beneath & The Tesla Legacy (review)

Bio

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Cantrell has published nine novels in over ten different languages. Her novels have won the ITW Thriller, the Macavity, and the Bruce Alexander awards. They have been nominated for the GoodReads Choice award, the Barry, the RT Reviewers Choice, and the APPY award. She and her husband and son live in Berlin. Find Rebecca Cantrell on Facebook, Twitter, and at www.rebeccacantrell.com.

STORY BEHIND THE STORIES…

A few years ago Rebecca Cantrell quit her job, sold her house, and moved to Hawaii to write a novel because, at seven, she decided that she would be a writer. She wrote the Hannah Vogel mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s, including A Trace of Smoke, A Night of Long Knives, A Game of Lies, and A City of Broken Glass.

She also wrote the Order of the Sanguines trilogy with James Rollins. The trilogy includes:The Blood Gospel, Innocent Blood, and Blood Infernal.

She also writes the Joe Tesla mystery series set in Grand Central Terminal and the tunnels underneath New York City. The series includes: The World Beneath and The Tesla Legacy.

A faded pink triangle pasted on the wall of Dachau Concentration Camp and time in Berlin, Germany in the 1980s inspired the Hannah Vogel series. Fluent in German, she received her high school diploma from the John F. Kennedy Schule in Berlin and studied at the Freie Universität in Berlin and the Georg August Universität in Göttingen before graduating from Carnegie Mellon University.

When she visited Berlin in the summer of 2006, she was astounded to discover that many locations in her novel have been rebuilt and reopened in the last few years, including the gay bar El Dorado and the Mosse House publishing house.

Her short stories have appeared in the Missing and First Thrills anthologies, and are available online.

Her screenplays The Humanitarian and A Taste for Blood were finalists at Shriekfest: The Los Angeles Horror/Sci-fi Film Festival.

The World Beneath

(2013)
(The first book in the Joe Tesla series)
A novel by Rebecca Cantrell

Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Cantrell drops you into a vast, dark world: 100 miles of living, breathing, tunnels that is the New York City underground. This subterranean labyrinth inhales three million bustling commuters every day. And every day, it breathes them all out again… except for one.

Software millionaire Joe Tesla is set to ring the bell on Wall Street the morning his company goes public. On what should be the brightest day in his life, he is instead struck with severe agoraphobia. The sudden dread of the outside is so debilitating, he can’t leave his hotel at Grand Central Terminal, except to go underground. Bad luck for Joe, because in the tunnels lurk corpses and murderers, an underground Victorian mansion and a mysterious bricked-up 1940s presidential train car. Joe and his service dog, Edison, find themselves pursued by villains and police alike, their only salvation now is to unearth the mystery that started it all, a deadly, contagious madness on the brink of escaping The World Beneath.

The Tesla Legacy

(2015)
(The second book in the Joe Tesla series)
A novel by Rebecca Cantrell

In New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Cantrell’s sequel to the award-winning The World Beneath, software genius, Joe Tesla, confronts an equally brilliant and far more powerful foe.

Still crippled by agoraphobia and confined to the tunnels under New York City, Joe is haunted by the fact that he cannot even attend his father’s funeral. His father’s death brings threats to the safety of Joe’s underground home: guilt over the broken relationship that can never be healed, a mysterious box of papers inherited from eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, and a ruthless enemy determined to steal those papers no matter the cost.

Mystified by why his inheritance is so valuable, Joe and his service dog, Edison, follow clues left a century ago by Joe’s famous ancestor to reveal the power of his family legacy. While Joe must rely on his considerable talents as a hacker, he must also reach out to friends.

But whom can he trust as he battles to save his beloved city from . . . The Tesla Legacy?

Review

No messing around on this one, straight into a simple question, please read these two books and someone please tell me how on earth these are being self published and are not coming out via a major publishing house?

Its not like the author hasn’t proven herself with the simply impeccable Order of the Sanguines series, she and James Rollins have created one of my favorite supernatural series of all time, each author seemingly bringing something better, deeper out of the others writing.

The Tesla series is an excellent, original and addictive series. Book 2 the Tesla Legacy shows some of the skills that i think consciously or unconsciously that she has drawn from writing with James Rollins, im going to be very intrigued to read his next stand alone, i feel he will also have picked up something.

I find that the series is very brave with its lead character, trapped as he is by his agoraphobia, any resolving of a crime or running from authorities, criminal, anyone at all is hindered, restricted to the tunnels. But those tunnels are vast, bigger than you can imagine. They go everywhere and give access to so much. Rebecca Cantrell brings those tunnels to life, makes them living arteries to the world of Joe Tesla. Unlike many authors she also knows the power of the supporting cast, who are drawn in, filled out and made fully fledged members of the plot, so you care what happens to them.

I rocketed through both of these books in a couple of days, and really want to get my hands on book three. Rebecca Cantrell is firmly ensconced as one of my go to Thriller writers now, bring on book 3

Highly recommended

(Parm)

Series

Hannah Vogel
1. A Trace of Smoke (2009)
2. A Night of Long Knives (2010)
3. A Game of Lies (2011)
4. A City of Broken Glass (2012)

Order of the Sanguines (with James Rollins)
0.5. City of Screams (2012)
1. The Blood Gospel (2013)
1.5. Blood Brothers (2013)
2. Innocent Blood (2013)
3. Blood Infernal (2015)

Joe Tesla
1. The World Beneath (2013)
2. The Tesla Legacy (2015)

Omnibus

Adrenaline Rush (2014) (with Brett Battles, Sean Black,Robert Gregory Browne, Gregg Hurwitz, C J Lyons andZoë Sharp)

Novellas

On the Train (2013)
The Man in the Attic (2014)

James Rollins / Rebecca Cantrell Blood Infernal (Review)

The Author’s

James Rollins

JAMES ROLLINS is the New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers, translated into more than forty languages.  His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the “top crowd pleasers” (New York Times) and one of the “hottest summer reads” (People Magazine). In each novel, acclaimed for its originality, Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets–and he does it all at breakneck speed and with stunning insight. James Rollins decided to become a writer as a boy immersed in the scientific adventures of Doc Savage, the wonders of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and pulps such as The Shadow, The Spider, and The Avenger. He honed his storytelling skills early, spinning elaborate tales that were often at the heart of pranks played on his brothers and sisters.

Although his talent emerged and grew, writing was not James’ original profession. Before he would set heroes and villains on harrowing adventures, he embarked on a career in veterinary medicine, graduating from the University of Missouri and establishing a successful veterinary. This hands-on knowledge of medicine and science helps shape the research and scientific speculation that set James Rollins books apart.

The exotic locales of James Rollins novels have emerged as a hybrid between imagination, research, and James’ extensive travels throughout the United States and Europe, as well as New Zealand, the South Pacific, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America. Recent travel includes book tours and stops across the country and several European nations to meet readers and give talks, seminars, and media interviews.

In recent years, much of James’ travel has involved meeting readers in small and large groups, at writing and fan conferences, and even aboard seagoing “seminars.” James’ mentoring temperament and coaching skills have made him a sought-out writing instructor and guest speaker for workshops, symposia, conventions, and other forums throughout the country. He is among the core faculty of the annual Maui Writer’s Conference and Retreat.

James Rollins is the author of seven thrillers in the bestselling Sigma Force series (Sandstorm, Map of Bones, Black Order, The Judas Strain, The Last Oracle, The Doomsday Key, and The Devil Colony); six individual adventure thrillers; the blockbuster movie novelization, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; and the Jake Ransom middle grade series (Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow, Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx, and more coming in 2013). The eighth Sigma Force adventure, Bloodline, is coming in Summer 2012.

In 2005, James joined other luminaries in the genre to create the International Thriller Writers, Inc. ITW recognizes and promotes the thriller genre, provides opportunities for mentoring, education, and collegiality among authors and industry professionals, and grants awards for excellence in thriller writing. James is currently the Co-President of ITW, serving alongside Steve Berry. (From Author’s Bio)

Rebecca Cantrell

 Rebecca Cantrell’s Hannah Vogel mystery/thriller novels have won the Bruce Alexander and Macavity awards and been nominated for the Barry and RT Reviewers Choice awards; her critically-acclaimed cell phone novel, iDrakula, was nominated for the APPY award and listed on Booklist’s Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth. She and her husband and son just left Hawaii’s sunny shores for adventures in Berlin. Find Rebecca Cantrell on Facebook, Twitter, and at Authors Website.

 

Blood Infernal

(2015)
(The third book in the Order of the Sanguines series)
A novel by Rebecca Cantrell and James Rollins

As an escalating scourge of grisly murders sweeps the globe, archaeologist Erin Granger must decipher the truth behind an immortal prophecy foretold in the Blood Gospel, a tome written by Christ and lost for centuries: The shackles of Lucifer have been loosened, and his Chalice remains lost. It will take the light of all three to forge the Chalice anew and banish him again to his eternal darkness. With the Apocalypse looming, Erin must again join forces with Army Sergeant Jordan Stone and Father Rhun Korza to search for a treasure lost for millennia. But the prize has already fallen into the hands of their enemy, a demon named Legion, before whom even the walls of the Vatican will fall.

The search for the key to salvation will take Erin and the others across centuries and around the world, from the dusty shelves of the Vatican’s secret archives to lost medieval laboratories, where ancient alchemies were employed to horrific ends. All the while, they are hunted, besieged by creatures of uncanny skill and talent. As clues are dug free from ancient underground chapels and found frozen in icy mountain caverns, Erin will discover that the only hope for victory lies in an impossible act–one that will destroy not only her, but all she loves. To protect the world, Erin must walk through the very gates of Hell and face the darkest of enemies: Lucifer himself.

With The Blood Gospel, the first novel in the Order of the Sanguines series, James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell combined science, myth, and religion to introduce a breathtaking world where miracles hold new meaning and the fight for good over evil is far more complicated than we ever dreamed. And now, in this epic conclusion to the Sanguines trilogy, Blood Infernal, they take us to the very pit of Hell itself, making us peer into the abyss and face our greatest fears, to answer the ultimate question: what price will we pay for true salvation?

Review

When i first heard about this series i worried that it was just another vampire series, that it might be a bit of true blood band wagon jumping. But books 1&2 soon put paid to that. This book 3 is a bitter sweet experience, endings are always tough with a really good series, and this is one that has been a favorite for a couple of years, ending can however be complicated, can the author (s) get it right?

Yes is the answer, James Rollins is one of my favorite thriller writers, and having read Rebecca Cantrell’s Tesla books i can see the where and why the blending of talents has worked so well. Its not that one is better than the other, its similar to when Feist and Wurts got together and wrote the empire trilogy, a set of books that took both authors beyond their normal writing. This is what i feel has happened again here.

Each and every book in this series has been an original action packed supernatural thriller and Blood Infernal is no different. But more important its a fitting and sublime end to a wonderful series. In any thriller like this there is a risk of going OTT, of taking the action beyond the mildly plausible, even with the supernatural you need to avoid that risk. Both these authors avoid doing that with style and panache, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat through-out. So many teasing tit bits from biblical myth brought forth and used in this story, so much action and so much energy and emotion. The characters will make you laugh and cry out in surprise, gasp and sob in anguish. Its going to be up there with my favorite books at the end of this year.

Very highly recommended for this book and this splendid series.

(Parm)

Series

Sigma Force
1. Sandstorm (2004)
2. Map of Bones (2005)
3. Black Order (2006)
4. The Judas Strain (2007)
5. The Last Oracle (2008)
6. The Doomsday Key (2009)
6.5. The Skeleton Key (2011)
7. The Devil Colony (2010)
7.5. Tracker (2012)
8. Bloodline (2012)
9. The Eye of God (2013)
10. The Sixth Extinction (2014)
11. The Bone Labyrinth (2015)
The Doomsday Key / The Last Oracle (omnibus) (2011)
The Sigma Force Novels (omnibus) (2013)
Sigma Force Novels 1 (omnibus) (2014)

Jake Ransom
1. Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow (2009)
2. Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx (2010)
Jake Ransom Complete Collection (omnibus) (2014)

Order of the Sanguines (with Rebecca Cantrell)
0.5. City of Screams (2012)
1. The Blood Gospel (2013)
1.5. Blood Brothers (2013)
2. Innocent Blood (2013)
3. Blood Infernal (2015)

Tucker Wayne (with Grant Blackwood)
1. The Kill Switch (2014)
2. War Hawk (2015)

Novels

Subterranean (1999)
Excavation (2000)
Deep Fathom (2001)
Amazonia (2002)
Ice Hunt (2003)
Altar of Eden (2009)

Novellas

The Devil’s Bones: Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce (2014)(with Steve Berry)

Series contributed to

Indiana Jones (Films)
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(2008)

 

2015: Titles i hope to review….

Every year around this time i post a list of books that i would like to review… its only ever a starter for 10, it only includes the ones i know, there are many i don’t, many that will be a surprise: Its a line in the sand (and maybe a hint for the lovely publishers 😉

I hope it also helps my fellow readers and bloggers know what is coming…..

Title	Author	Publisher	Date
Rain on the Dead	Jack Higgins	Putnam	30/12/2014
The Providence of Fire: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne: Book Two	Brian Staveley	Tor	15/01/2015
The Last Roman: Honour	Jack Ludlow	Allison & Busby	22/01/2015
The Mime Order (The Bone Season)	Samantha Shannon	Bloomsbury	27/01/2015
Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series	James Rollins, Rebecca Cantrell	William Morrow	10/02/2015
Guns of the Dawn	Adrian Tchaikovsky	Tor	12/02/2015
The Autumn Republic (Powder Mage trilogy)	Brian McClellan	Orbit	12/02/2015
Master of War: Defiant Unto Death	David Gilman	Head of Zeus	12/02/2015
Kings and Emperors: An Alan Lewrie Naval Adventure (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures)	Dewey Lambdin	Thomas Dunne	24/02/2015
Fields of Wrath: A Renshai Novel	Mickey Zucker Reichert	DAW	24/02/2015
Wings of the Storm	Giles Kristian	Bantam	25/02/2015
Those Above (The Empty Throne)	Daniel Polansky	Hodder	26/02/2015
Gallow: The Anvil	Nathan Hawke	Gollancz	26/02/2015
The Boy Who Wept Blood (Erebus Sequence 2)	Den Patrick	Gollancz	28/02/2015
Maximus	Richard L. Black	Shadow Mountain	03/03/2015
Rome’s Lost Son: Vespasian VI	Robert Fabbri	Atlantic Books	05/03/2015
Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Four	Christian Cameron	Orion	12/03/2015
The Assassin (Isaac Bell Series)	Clive Cussler	Michael Joseph	12/03/2015
Sword Of The North (The Grim Company)	Luke Scull	Head of Zeus	12/03/2015
Empire of the Moghul: Traitors in the Shadows	Alex Rutherford	Headline	09/04/2015
Eagles at War: (Eagles of Rome 1)	Ben Kane	Preface	09/04/2015
Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Five	Christian Cameron	Orion	09/04/2015
Gallow: Solace	Nathan Hawke	Gollancz	09/04/2015
The Skull Throne (The Demon Cycle, Book 4)	Peter V. Brett	Harper Voyager	09/04/2015
The Patriot Threat (Cotton Malone)	Steve Berry	Hodder	09/04/2015
Thunder of the Gods (Empire)	Anthony Riches	Hodder	16/04/2015
The Curse of Anne Boleyn	C C Humphreys		May-15
Keane’s Charge	Iain Gale	Heron Books	07/05/2015
At the Ruin of the World	John Henry Clay	Hodder	07/05/2015
At the Ruin of the World	John Henry Clay	Hodder	07/05/2015
Absolution (The Carnivia Trilogy)	Jonathan Holt	Head of Zeus	07/05/2015
The Girl Who Walked Into The Fire	Manda Scott	Bantam	07/05/2015
The Watchman of Eternity	Paul Witcover	Bantam	07/05/2015
The Seeker (Damian Seeker 1)	S. G. MacLean	Quercus	07/05/2015
Solomon Creed	Simon Toyne	Harper Collins	07/05/2015
Black River	Tom Harper	Hodder	07/05/2015
Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Six	Christian Cameron	Orion	14/05/2015
Blood and Steel (Throne of the Caesars, Book 2)	Harry Sidebottom	Harper Collins	21/05/2015
Piranha (Oregon Files)	Clive Cussler	Putnam	26/05/2015
Greatcoat’s Lament	Sebastien De Castell	Jo Fletcher	02/06/2015
Tintagel Book 1	M. K. Hume	Headline	04/06/2015
Whose Business is to Die	Adrian Goldsworthy	W&N	11/06/2015
The King’s Assassin	Angus Donald	Sphere	15/06/2015
The Liar’s Key (Red Queen’s War, Book 2)	Mark Lawrence	Harper Voyager	18/06/2015
Queen of Fire: Book 3 of Raven’s Shadow	Anthony Ryan	Orbit	02/07/2015
The Bone Labyrinth: A Sigma Force Novel (Sigma Force Novels)	James Rollins	William Morrow	02/07/2015
Uprooted	Naomi Novak	Tor	02/07/2015
The Immortal Throne	Stella Gemmell	Bantam	02/07/2015
Kingmaker 2: Betrayal	Toby Clements	Century	02/07/2015
The Insider Threat: A Pike Logan Thriller	Brad Taylor	Dutton	07/07/2015
Wars of the Roses: Margaret of Anjou	Conn Iggulden	Putnam	16/07/2015
The Madagaskar Plan	Guy Saville	Hodder	16/07/2015
Ruin	John Gwynne	Tor	16/07/2015
Ruin	John Gwynne	Tor	16/07/2015
Marston Moor (The Civil War Chronicles)	Michael Arnold	Hodder	16/07/2015
Half a War (Shattered Sea)	Joe Abercrombie	Harper Voyager	28/07/2015
Hereward: The Immortals: (Hereward 5)	James Wilde	Bantam	30/07/2015
Vanishing Games	Roger Hobbs	DoubleDay	30/07/2015
The Protector	S.J. Deas	Headline	30/07/2015
Saxon: The Pope’s Assassin	Tim Severin	Macmillan	30/07/2015
The Eternal World	Christopher Farnsworth	William Morrow	04/08/2015
Salamis	Christian Cameron	Orion	13/08/2015
Fool’s Quest (Fitz and the Fool, Book 2)	Robin Hobb	Harper Voyager	13/08/2015
Sword of Apollo	Noble Smith	Thomas Dunne	18/08/2015
Scourge of Rome: Gaius Valerius Verrens 6	Douglas Jackson	Bantam	27/08/2015
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms	George R. R. Martin	Harper Voyager	06/10/2015
The Prisoner’s Gold (The Hunters 3)	Chris Kuzneski	Headline	08/10/2015
The City of Mirrors	Justin Cronin	Orion	08/10/2015
The Hanging Tree	Ben Aaronovitch	Gollancz	19/11/2015
War Hawk	James Rollins, Grant Blackwood	Orion	07/01/2016
Fire	C C Humphreys	Century	05/05/2016
King of Ashes (The War of Five Crowns, Book 1)	Raymond E. Feist	Harper Voyager	05/05/2016
The Ember in the Ashes: The Book and the Sword: 2	Antoine Rouaud	Gollancz	16/06/2016
Robin Hobb Untitled 3 (Fitz and the Fool, Book 3)	Robin Hobb	Harper Voyager	14/07/2016

James Rollins: The Sixth Extinction (Review)

James Rollins

(James Czajkowski)
 (1961 – )

aka James Clemens

James Rollins was born in Chicago, Illinois, is 1961. With his three brothers and three sisters, he was raised in the Midwest and rural Canada. He graduated with a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Missouri and went on to establish his own veterinary practice in Sacramento, California. An amateur spelunker and a PADI-certified scuba enthusiast, he’ll often be found either underground or underwater.

Bio: Authors web site Bio

Buy from WH Smiths

 

Book Description

A remote military research station in Utah sends out a frantic distress call, ending with a chilling final command: Kill us all! Personnel from the neighbouring base rush in to discover everyone already dead – and not just the scientists, but every living thing for 50 square miles has been annihilated. The land is entirely sterile – and the blight is spreading.

To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat that rises out of the distant past, to a time when Antarctica was green and all life on Earth balanced upon the blade of a knife. Following clues from an ancient map rescued from the lost Library of Alexandria, Sigma will discover the truth about an ancient continent, about a new form of death buried under miles of ice.

From millennia-old secrets out of the frozen past to mysteries buried deep in the darkest jungles of today, Sigma will face its greatest challenge to date: stopping the coming extinction of mankind. But is it already too late?

 

Review:

Reading a James Rollins is always a pleasure, he is an author who combines so many of my personal reading pleasures, there is the action of the story, the historic past of the back story, the familiar character of Sigma mixed with new faces, new bad guys(and girls) and a plot that is usually mind bogglingly twisty. Like all well told lies (according to the films/books) the best told lie or fiction, the one that people will really believe, is the one that contains as much truth as possible.

This is the true genius of James Rollins thrillers, the scope and depth of research is staggering, but then the author takes that, adds in his own knowledge and skills, and wraps it up in his… well,… convoluted mind is the only concept I can think to use and out comes a story, a story so crazy, so bizarre, yet so plausible that it scares the hell out of me reading it.

Each sigma tale shows how far mankind’s technological growth has outstripped its growth of morality, maybe, as part of the story shows we do need to reach for the immortality gene and live lives long enough to experience the folly of our mistakes and grab for profit over morality, to truly start to gain some wisdom and stop abusing the planet?

 

6^th Extinction as with many Rollins tales leave me not wanting to talk too much about the plot, because to give anything away would be annoying as hell for me, so I won’t do it to another. I did however find that tied around all of the fantastic plot, and world ending disasters there was also a great deal of personal plot and growth for Sigma characters, the continual integration of the new with Jason, who continues to grow into a sigma star of the future, old favourites in Monk and of course Kowalski (also a surprise cameo of some really old characters). The most I will give you in overall plot summary is, it gets very Hot, it gets very cold, it’s got fantastic creatures that boggle the mind and kill with impunity and a plot that will chill the blood.

As ever with all of James Rollins books, for anyone who is an avid reader you will know that the characters are real, they are not some two dimensional construct on paper, you the reader bleed with them, hurt with them, cry with them. He has a truly amazing gift to suck the reader into the tale and the lives of those in the book. Also unlike many thrillers, anyone could die, and yet if the main characters survive it’s not because of some unbelievable herculean character it’s because of a skill built up over the story and previous books in the series, the group survive as a group because of shared skills and experience and teamwork. It all lends a layer of credibility and reality to the plot that is missing in so many other thrillers of this type.

 

I really do think that this is James Rollins most terrifyingly real, mind bending-ly plausible tale to date, I wonder what on earth could come next. I know I look forward to it immensely.

 

(Parm)

 

James Rollins: The Kill switch (review)

James Rollins

(James Czajkowski)
(1961 – )

aka James Clemens

James Rollins was born in Chicago, Illinois, is 1961. With his three brothers and three sisters, he was raised in the Midwest and rural Canada. He graduated with a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Missouri and went on to establish his own veterinary practice in Sacramento, California. An amateur spelunker and a PADI-certified scuba enthusiast, he’ll often be found either underground or underwater.

Book Description

Who does the U.S. government call upon when a mission requires perfect stealth, execution, and discretion? Meet the newest recruits to the expanding Sigma Force universe–former Army Ranger Tucker Wayne and his stalwart companion, Kane, a military working dog of exceptional abilities — in:

THE KILL SWITCH

The mission seems simple enough: extract a pharmaceutical magnate from Russian soil, a volatile man who holds the secret to a deadly bioweapon. But nothing is as it appears to be. A conspiracy of world-shattering scope unravels as Tucker and Kane struggle to keep one move ahead of their deadly enemies.

From the frozen steppes of Russia to the sun-blasted mountains of South Africa and Namibia, a biological threat millions of years in the making strikes out at the heart of America. All that stands in the way from a global apocalypse: one man and his dog. But can even Tucker and Kane thwart an ecological menace out of the ancient past to save the world’s future?

Review

Every Rollins is a thriller I look forward too, but when I saw this one I was slightly concerned, the Grant Blackwood link smacked of a James Patterson change of pace. I liked Patterson in the early years, but his “shared books” were always slightly wrong, not quite up to the class of the solo books.

The Kill Switch isn’t the best book i have read by Rollins, but it is a really fun, Interesting and powerful thriller, it still has the Sigma spin and drive. The co-authoring doesn’t diminish the writing, it feels like a Rollins through and through.

This book has an interesting POV style with the switch from Tucker our main character to his partner, a dog, in the form of Kane. The dogs POV could have been a really dodgy gimmick, but it think the authors get the tone just right, smart but still an animal. The plot has plenty of twists and turns and the feel of the co-locations of the book is impeccable. From Russia to South Africa, the author has clearly done his research, i froze in Russia, i cooked in Africa. One of the regular triumphs of a Rollins book is that every side character is complete and one you feel emotinally tied too, from traitors to sub drivers, to the brothers who assist Tucker in Africa all are so well written you could enjoy a book about any of them.

The wild apocalyptic plot as ever has the right amount of plausibility in it to add the fear factor and the “what if” niggling doubt. All in all it is a well rounded fun thriller, one that will delight Rollins fans.

Recommenced

(Parm)

Sigma Force

1. Sandstorm (2004)
2. Map of Bones (2005)
3. Black Order (2006)
4. The Judas Strain (2007)
5. The Last Oracle (2008)
6. The Doomsday Key (2009)
6.5. The Skeleton Key (2011)
7. The Devil Colony (2011)
7.5. Tracker (2012)
8. Bloodline (2012)
9. The Eye of God (2013)
10. The Sixth Extinction (2014)
The Doomsday Key / The Last Oracle (omnibus) (2011)
The Sigma Force Novels (omnibus) (2013)

Jake Ransom

1. Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow (2009)
2. Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx (2010)

Order of the Sanguines (with Rebecca Cantrell)
0.5. City of Screams (2012)
1. The Blood Gospel (2013)
1.5. Blood Brothers (2013)
2. Innocent Blood (2013)

 

Tucker Wayne (with Grant Blackwood)
1. The Kill Switch (2014)