Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A remote California military research station broadcast a distress call with the message "Kill Us All!" A young park ranger and her dog flee the cloud of toxic gas spreading over the countryside meant to kill whatever was released from the lab. Every living thing in a 50 square mile radius is dead, and the blight is spreading. In their tenth outing (after The Eye of God), the Sigma Force must decipher the threat and find a remedy before the blight destroys all life on Earth. From the strange underground ecosystems in the rivers and caves far under the ice of Antarctica to a tepui (a table-top mountain, or mesa) in the rainforests of Brazil, where a crazed ecologist seeks to help mankind's extermination along in his lab, the team race to find the key to reversing the damage before it's too late. Verdict Best-selling author Rollins has again crafted an excellent nail-biting thriller that all action adventure readers will love. Rollins always provides author notes with the science and historical facts behind his stories, and the creatures the team encounter are frighteningly possible!-Cynde Suite, Bartow Cty. Lib. Syst., Adairsville, GA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Mash up Lovecraft and Ludlum, stir in exotic geography and lashings of mad science, and you've got the latest from the Rollins (Bloodline, 2012, etc.) pop-thriller factory. Given that half of adult Americans reportedly don't believe in evolution, it's daring to open in the chart room of the HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin pondering an "ancient Fuegian map" redolent of dark, unsettling mysteries. Move forward a couple of centuries, and we're with the steely-jawed Painter Crowe, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency commando par excellence (and who knew DARPA had commandos?), who takes time out from protecting the world from technological mayhem only long enough to ogle his whip-smart fiancee, "to appreciate the curve of her backside, the angle of her hip, the length of her leg." She may be the captain of the chess club we'd all like to join, but she's got the right stuff, like all of Sigma Force, to protect us from eviluntil, that is, supreme bad guy Cutter Elwes returns from the grave where he's presumably been, well, not living for a dozen-odd years to do that voodoo that he does so well. He's very, very badwe know because he's "French on his father's side"but he's not the only scientist to be tinkering with the innermost workings of nature, attempting to undo all that we know of the laws of Darwinian evolution by, say, bringing extremely irritable creatures back from extinction and unleashing biological mayhem on an unsuspecting world. Cutting-edge science and mad dashes to D.C., Antarctica and highland Brazil notwithstanding, this is a good old-fashioned dust-up, the cliffhanging question being always whether the good guys of the public sector will prevail over the bad guys of the private. Tune in to find out. Literature it's notmore like an industrial product that sort of looks like it, in the same way that a fast-food burger resembles food. Still, it's plenty tasty, if not very nutritious. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

A remote scientific research facility issues a frantic mayday: something has been let out of the facility, something that could potentially lead to the extinction of life on Earth. Now it's up to Sigma Force, the covert operations arm of the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to find out what the facility was working on, why the chief researcher has gone missing, and why some centuries-old maps seem to be vitally important to the man's work. This is another fast-paced mixture of real science, real history, and wild speculation. Rollins' popular Sigma Force series is definitely formulaic, but it's a formula that works splendidly, like a well-oiled machine. We know who these characters are, we know there will be a mind-bending revelation about a historical mystery, and we know there will be plenty of race-against-the-clock action. Fans of the series and lovers of wall-to-wall action in general will have a great time. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: For speed freaks (narrative speed, that is), Rollins always delivers the goods. Readers, start your engines.--Pitt, David Copyright 2014 Booklist