2008; 577 pages. Book 5 (out
of 14) in the “Sigma Force” series.
New Author? : No. Genre : Suspense;
Thriller; Action-Adventure; Save-the-World.
Overall Rating : 10 */10.
Someone
just tried to kill Gray Pierce, the commander of the black ops unit “Sigma
Force”. In broad daylight. In the middle of Washington D.C. Right outside the Sigma Force headquarters, no less.
It
was only by an extraordinary stroke of luck that Gray survived. Some homeless guy had just wandered up to him,
looking for a handout, no doubt. The
sniper’s bullet wiped him out instead of Gray. I
suppose it’s theoretically possible the vagrant was the intended target, but
why would a professional hitman have any reason to take out a homeless
person?
Nah, that's not very likely. Somehow Gray’s cover
has been blown and that needs to be fixed, and fast. Just as soon as he attends to one small
detail.
Why was the panhandler carrying around a 2,000-year-old coin?
What’s To Like...
The
action starts immediately as The Last Oracle opens
with a prologue set in 398 A.D. Greece during the final days of the famed Oracle at
Delphi. It never lets up after that as
various members of Sigma Force combat the bad guys on a variety of fronts:
Washington D.C., India, the Ural Mountains in Russia, and Pripyat, Ukraine, the latter being the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster better known as “Chernobyl”.
As
with any Sigma Force novel, there are multiple plotlines to follow. Here, at least at the beginning, they are: 1.) Who shot the panhandler? 2.) Why was the panhandler trying to reach
Gray? 3.) What’s with the skull? 4.) What’s so special about Sasha? 5.) Where’s Monk?
6.)
What are the nefarious plans (dubbed “Operation Saturn” and “Operation Uranus”)
that Savina and Nicolas have concocted?
There's lots of intrigue, plenty of shooting, chases galore, and enough wit to keep
things from getting too somber. Monk, a
Sigma Force member and apparently MIA at the end of the previous novel (I’m not reading this series in order),
is initially way out in the boonies, and it was fun to watch how James
Rollins works him back towards reuniting with his wife and old SF buddies. I liked also that not all the Russian
characters are “pure black”, nor are all of the Americans “pure white”. Other writers of Thrillers should take heed
of this.
The book is well-researched. I
learned about Russia’s struggles with maintaining the safety of its nuclear power program.
I’d never heard of the Russian city of Chelyabinsk (just pronounce it “jellybeans”),
despite it being Russia’s 9th-largest city, and the sad fate of the nearby Lake Karachay. There was an autism angle as well, including something called “Autistic Savant Syndrome” which figured prominently in the tale.
You’ll
learn one or two Russian cuss phrases, plus a few snippets of the Romani (Gypsy) tongue. There's only a few cases of cussing
in English, and there are some neat drawings that are critical to the storyline. James Rollins keeps meticulous track of the
timing of each scene (down to the exact minute) , which really helped since the action is worldwide and the
plot threads are often occurring simultaneously. The 22 chapters, plus a Prologue and an
Epilogue, average out to about 24 pages each, but those chapters have lots of
scene shifts, so you’re never far from a good place to stop for the night.
Excerpts...
Elizabeth fled
with Kowalski down a crooked alley. A
sewage trench lined one side, reeking and foul.
“Do you have
another gun?” she asked.
“You shoot?”
“Skeet. In college.”
“Not much
difference. Targets just scream a bit
more.” (pg. 299)
“She might
survive, but in what state? The augment,
besides heightening her savant talent, also minimizes the symptoms of her
autism. Take the augment away, and
you’ll be left with a child disconnected from the world.”
“That’s better
than being in the grave,” Kat said.
“Is it?” McBride
challenged her. “Who are you to
judge? With the augment, she has a full
life, as short as that might be. Many
children are born doomed from the start, given life sentences by medical
conditions. Leukemia, AIDS, birth
defects. Shouldn’t we seek to give them
the best quality of life, rather than
quantity?”
Kat scowled. “You only want to use her.”
“Since when is
mutual benefit such a bad thing?” (pg. 376)
“Kowalski, help her.” “But
she shot me!” (pg.
449)
The ending is fantastic, climactic, twisty,
and bittersweet. The good guys may
prevail, but it comes at a cost. Chapter
22 is a general epilogue for the survivors of the adventure, and it’s followed by a shorter,
more-focused “Epilogue” section that’ll leave a lump in your throat. You don't see that often in an Action-Adventure story.
Be
sure to read the “Author’s
Note To Readers: Truth or Fiction” (pgs. 573-577) at the end to learn what parts
of the story are true and what parts were dreamed up by James Rollins. You will be astounded.
There’s
not really anything to quibble about in The Last
Oracle. My expectations for any
James Rollins book are high, and this one fully met them.
10 Stars. You can double-check some of the startling
claims in the Truth-or-Fiction section
by going out to Wikipedia and reading about Chelyabinsk, Lake Karachay,
and Chernobyl. Wiki’s section about the
latter was particularly eye-opening for me.
Yes, Chernobyl is today a ghost town
due to the radiation levels. But
a few people still live there, and, besides two general stores for those diehards, there's even (get this!) a hotel catering to tourists.
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