Old Bones - Aaron Elkins

   1987; 210 pages.  Book 4 (out of 18) in the “Gideon Oliver Mysteries” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : International Mystery & Crime; France; Whodunit; Forensic Anthropology.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Talk about a dream business trip, Gideon Oliver is on one!

 

    He’s in France lecturing at a symposium on forensic anthropology, and wouldn’t you know it, a partial skeleton is unearthed at a nearby chateau.  The local authorities call on Gideon for his expertise in assisting them to determine the victim’s gender and age, how long it’s been entombed, and whether foul play was a factor in its demise.

 

    Oh yeah, it should be mentioned that one of the local gentry also has just perished in an accidental drowning in the area’s local tidal pool.  But it’s hard to see that as anything more than a coincidence.

 

    Yeah, right.

 

What’s To Like...

    Old Bones is the third book I’ve read in Aaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver series.  The settings in these three tales have been delightfully varied: Egypt; Dorset, England; and now the Brittany region of France.  Aaron Elkins is an American author, and must do considerable research, since each of these settings has felt remarkably “real” to me.

 

    It’s fun getting to know Gideon.  He’s a nerd and a scientist, but so am I.  He specializes in carefully analyzing the subject matter (old bones), and drawing objective conclusions therefrom.  Most of his deductions contain a degree of uncertainty (like a weather forecast), and occasionally he’s wrong.

 

    The murder-mystery angle is developed quite well.  The lists of suspects and motives are intriguingly long, and the number of opportunities for skullduggery frustratingly short.  Happily, that’s where plot twists come in.

 

    The story’s setting means that the reader is treated to lots of French phrases, many of which are food-related.  There’s also a smattering of German vocabulary, most notably “obersturmbannfuhrer”, (yeah, try saying that ten times real fast), since the Nazi occupation of France in World War 2 has a significant impact on the plotline here.

 

    I enjoyed learning how to properly eat a delicacy called “tiny gray shrimp”.  Being a language freak, I chuckled at Gideon’s musing as to how “Bugs Bunny” would be translated into French.  Which would it be: “lapin fou” or “insect le lapin”?  Some of the titles of Gideon’s lectures were cleverly amusing, such as “Phylogenetic relationships between the Middle Pleistocene hominids and the western Neanderthals”, and “Larval Invasions of Calliphoridae in Unburied Corpses from Two to Four Weeks”.  And we won’t even mention how a “polydactylous pig” impacts the investigation.

 

    The ending is suitably exciting and twisty.  Some basic assumptions turn out to be false, our heroes come dangerously close to be/coming victims themselves, and my guesses as to who the perpetrators were completely wrong.  Which is exactly the way I like it.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 1,265 ratings and 139 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 2,310 ratings and 188 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “There are apparently some hand bones.  I assume there wouldn’t be any other animals with anything like human hands—aside from the apes, of course.”

     “As a matter of fact, there are.  The skeleton of a bear’s paw isn’t hard to confuse with a human hand or foot.  Even the flipper of a small whale.”

    “Ah,” said Joly.

    John, who had been quick to accept the inspector’s invitation to see the French criminal justice system in action, spoke up from the back seat.  “Hey, great, we’re really narrowing things down.  It’s either a person, a bear or a whale.  The case is practically solved.”  (pg. 47)

 

    “You all settled down for the night?”

    “Uh-huh.  I’m in bed.”

    “Good,” he said, his voice softening.  “What are you wearing?  That silky tan thing, I hope; the one that accentuates that lovely, long, marvelous, intra-sacrospinalis sulcus that you have.”

    “Ah,” she said with a sigh, “that’s more like it.”  (pg. 143)

 

Kindle Details…

    Old Bones is discounted to $1.99 right now at Amazon, but that’s a temporary situation.  The other books in the series cost anywhere from $1.99 to $9.99, with the prices generally higher for the books in the latter half of the series.

 

“Oh-oh. (…) Looks like another case of cleidacranial whatsamatosis.”  (pg. 149)

    There are eleven instances of profanity in the first 10% of the book, but no f-bombs.  No adult situations arose, nor do I recall any being alluded to.  I only spotted one typo: “Iout/I out”.

 

    That’s all I can find to grouse about in Old Bones.  The three Gideon Oliver books I’ve read so far have all been captivating: engaging storylines, lots of plot twists, exotic settings, and well-structured murder mysteries.  I think this series is a winner.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last tidbit.  The most useful of all the French phrases given in Old Bones is this one: “Fermez la bouche.”  Google it.

Only Human - Tom Holt

   1999; 344 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Paranormal Urban Fantasy; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Everybody can use a vacation now and then.  Even the Creator of the Universe and his only begotten Son.  A fishing trip is great therapy for any Father/Son relationship.

 

    Unfortunately, the Universe doesn’t stop universing when its Maker steps away.  That’s why Heaven has a stand-by operating system.  It’s called a mainframe computer.

 

    Of course, you still need someone who can monitor the mainframe program.  In case of Armageddon, or a plague, or things of that ilk.  That’s where the Creator’s other only-begotten Son (say what?) comes in.

 

    His name’s Kevin, and his only task while Pops and Big Bro are on vacation is to sit at a desk and observer the actions that the mainframe is carrying out.  Don’t touch anything, have Martha the Heavenly tea lady bring you a cup of cuppa occasionally, and contact Dad if anything unusual pops up.

 

    What could possibly go wrong?

 

What’s To Like...

    Only Human is a 1999 standalone novel by Tom Holt examining the now-popular topic of Artificial Intelligence and its alleged threat to human existence.  Thanks to Kevin’s dimwitted meddling with the mainframe's keyboard, a factory worker becomes possessed by a computer; a girl in a painting is embedded in a human girl; a Prince of Hell, Artofel, gets zapped into the Vicar of St. Anthony’s body; and the Prime Minister of Great Britain finds himself turned into a lemming.

 

    The text hops around between those four bodynappings, plus a fifth storyline: Kevin’s frantic efforts to patch things up before God and J get home.  Subplots include efforts by the computer manufacturing company, Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits, to fix their units, plus a bunch of rogue demons (but not Artofel who’s busy with his vicar duties) trying to do some evil whilst all the chaos is unfolding.

 

    Tom Holt has fun examining the Topside/Flipside (Heaven/Hell) relationships, the role of humans and lemmings in the Divine Scheme of things, and how politics and religion find their place in all of this.  The concepts of Good and Evil often get blurred, much to some of the characters’ dismay.

 

    There are some neat references in Music (Bruce Springsteen), Writing (Stephen King, Clive Barker), Art (Hieronymus Bosch), and TV (Mulder and Scully).  Tom Holt is a British writer, so it was fun deciphering things like Captain Mainwaring, aggro, prat, squimper, Jeremy Paxman, Sir Clive Sinclair, and the vocabulary words listed below.

 

    The ending comprises the entire 33-page-long final chapter.  All the plot threads get tied up, which is no small feat, since you have lemmings, demons, humans, and Topside residents to deal with.  By the time God and J make it home, all the galactic glitches have either been resolved or at least swept under the rug.

 

Excerpts...

    ”Ich bin ein lemming.”  He paused, struggling to reunite his train of thought.  “And lemmings united,” he added tentatively, “can never be defeated.”

    “Yes we can,” said a voice to his right.  “Quite easily.”

    For a moment, Fraud found himself speculating as to whether Destiny had got the wrong number.  “Yes, but—” he said.

    “United,” the voice went on, “we’re an absolute pushover.  It’s when we all split up and run about in different directions that the predators get confused and go away.  About the only thing we do when we’re united is jump off—”

    “Shhh!”  (pg. 163)

 

    “Your whole scam’s based on one basic error.  Sorry,” she added, “but there it is.”

    “Oh yes?  And perhaps you’d be terribly sweet and let us in on the big secret?”

    Maria looked thoughtful.  “It’s not really a secret,” she said.  “More sort of staring you in the face.  Just ask yourselves: why do supreme beings have mortals in the first place?”

    The demons beamed tolerantly.  “Atmosphere,” Buffy said.

    “Like potted plants in dentists’ waiting rooms,” Chubby added.  “You don’t need them, but it makes the place look a bit less sparse.”  (pg. 293)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jejune (adj.) : naïve, simplistic, superficial.

Others: Dozy (adj.); Welly (n.); Swarf (n.); Banjax (n.), Pinny (n., slang); Graunch (v.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 135 ratings and 12 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.80*/5, based on 1,570 ratings and 36 reviews.

 

If at first you don’t succeed, put someone else’s initials on the worksheet.  (pg. 265)

    The profanity is sparse in Only Human.  I counted just nine instances in the first 30% of the book, although that included one f-bomb.  I also noted just one typo: bd/bad.  We’ll blame the publishing house for that.

 

    Most of the negative reviews at Goodreads seemed to be those people who found the book's humor off-putting and those who were upset that God was being parodied.  Or both.  And/or the fact that they weren’t made aware that such deity-spoofing would occur.

 

    I thought Only Human was witty, entertaining, and thought-provoking.  But that's the norm for  me and any Tom Holt novel I read.  Everyone’s sense of humor is different, so here’s the litmus test:  If you've watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and were offended by the portrayal of God and the religious inferences therein, give this book a skip.  If, like most people, you found MP&THG one of the best movies you've ever watched, be prepared for a similar reaction to this tome.

 

    8½ Stars.  Oh yeah, one last piece of advice:  Psychomorphic Waveband Stabilisers.  Don’t leave home without them.

Maphead - Ken Jennings

   2011; 290 pages.  Full Title: Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks.  New Author?  : Yes.  Genres : Geography; Non-Fiction; Maps.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Are you a maphead?

 

    Have you ever taped a map on the wall, just for the joy of looking at it?  Do you keep an atlas on your bookshelf, and occasionally take it out just to gaze at the maps inside?  Do ancient maps fascinate you?  Do you keep a collection of maps in a drawer?

 

    As a kid, did you like to draw maps, even if they were of imaginary places?  Do oddly-named towns {such as Intercourse, Pennsylvania, close to where I grew up) intrigue you?  Do you wish you could pronounce the name of that Welsh town with its gazillion letters?

 

    If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, you could be entitled to a reward.  No, not money.  Instead, you’re eligible to be utterly delighted by reading Ken Jennings’ (yes, that ex-Jeopardy mega-champion dude) book: Maphead.

 

What’s To Like...

    Ken Jennings is of course best known for being a contestant, long-reigning champion, and later on, host of the long-running game show Jeopardy.  But he is also an author and geography enthusiast, and Maphead is a logical consequence of that.

 

    There are twelve chapters in the book, with my favorites below in pink:

CH 01. Eccentricity.  The author’s childhood fascination with maps.

CH 02. Bearing.  Topophilia and the history of maps.

CH 03. Fault.  Geographic illiteracy.

CH 04. Benchmarks.  Map collections and town with crazy names.

CH 05. Elevation.  Map fairs, map stealing, map collecting.

CH 06. Legend.  Maps of imaginary lands and kids who draw them.

CH 07. Reckoning.  The National Geographic Bee.

CH 08. Meander.  Competitions involving visiting places.

CH 09. Transit.  “Roads scholars” and map rallies.

CH 10. Overedge.  GPS and geocaching.

CH 11. Frontier.  Google Earth and Google Maps.

CH 12. Relief.  Confluence hunting and “Earth Sandwiches”.

 

    Those chapters cover 250 pages of text, but there’s also a bunch of goodies after that.  There's a smattering of neat photographs included, and lots of footnotes.  The footnotes work well, and I highly recommend taking the time to read those marked with a “dagger” or an “asterisk”, as they often contain sidelights that are both witty and enlightening.  The footnotes marked with a “number” cite the references for Ken Jennings’s data, and can be skipped if that doesn't float your boat.

 

    The book does an excellent job of presenting the “state of the art” of geography (hint: it’s being downgraded in importance), and is jam-packed with delightful tidbits of geographical trivia.  You’ll learn why “orient” can mean both “the Far East” and “to spatially align something”; and why Bir Tawil is a piece of land that is unclaimed by any nation.  It was also eye-opening to learn that the Four Corners Monument, of which my state of Arizona is a part, is actually misplaced by a couple hundred feet.

 

    I found the chapter devoted to the National Geographic Bee absolutely enthralling.  Fifty-plus kids are grilled with questions about obscure all sorts of geography topics.  Ken Jennings gives the reader a few examples of those questions and I, who consider myself to be a geo-geek, was blown away.  One example: “Which country borders more landlocked countries—Algeria or Democratic Republic of the Congo?”

 

    Yeah, like I’d have any idea about that.  But at least I’d have a 50% chance to guessing correctly.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 659 ratings and 247 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.86*/5, based on 7,892 ratings and 1,161 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Cartacoethes (n.) : the uncontrollable compulsion to see maps everywhere.

Others: Graticule (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    Francis Billington was a teenager when his family landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, and records of that time make him out to be the colony’s Bart Simpson, an incorrigible juvenile delinquent.  He nearly blew up the Mayflower in harbor by firing his father’s musket inside a cabin where flints and gunpowder were stored.  On January 8 of the following year, Francis climbed a tree on a nearby hilltop and was surprised to see “a great sea” three miles away.  This discovery led to a good deal of pilgrim excitement—could this be the famous Northwest Passage?—but when the vast “Billington Sea” (as it is still known) was explored, it turned out to be a pond only seven feet deep.  Oops.  (page 87)

 

    “How many countries have you been to?” she asks. (…)

    Uh-oh.  I’d been doing a mental count in the car on the way here.  I feel like a reasonably well-traveled guy, having lived on three continents.  And yet my total is a dispiriting twenty-four—and that’s counting a ninety-minute layover in the Taipei airport, as well as the time I stuck my foot across into the North Korean side of a conference room during a high school trip to the DMZ.

    “Twenty-nine,” I lie, rounding up to the nearest, uh, prime.

    Louise is taken aback.  “What are you doing writing a book about geography if you’ve only been to twenty-nine countries?”

    Touché.  (page 151)

 

Kindle Details…

    Maphead currently sells for $13.99 at Amazon, although I snagged it when it was temporarily discounted.  Ken Jennings has another dozen or so e-books for your Kindle; they range in price from $2.99 to $13.99.  About half of these are in his “Junior Genius Guides” series, whose target audience is 8-10-year-olds.

 

“You can’t spell “geocaching” without “aching”.  (page 210)

    There’s a smidgen of profanity in Maphead, seven cases in the first 20%.  Still, that surprised me a bit since this is a non-fiction tome about geography.  I also spotted one typo: “globetrotting” got split up at the end of a text line into “glo-betrotting”.  I suspect that was the formatting program’s error though, not the author’s.

 

    That’s all I can come up with to gripe about.  Maphead was an awesome read for me: interesting, imaginative, enlightening, and at times just downright witty.  I’m not saying the book will inspire every reader to take up geocaching or arrange to visit, and document with photos, the highest point in every state in the USA.  But if you loved geography class as a kid, you’re going to enjoy this book from beginning to end.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  There’s a quiz in the back of the book titled “Are You a Maphead?”.  Forty questions of varying difficulty, with the answers supplied thereafter.  I got 26 of the 40 correct, which meant I made it, albeit just barely, into the “Sensei of Direction” tier.  Give it a try after reading this book to see how much of a maphead you are.  No cheating!

To The Nines - Janet Evanovich

   2003; 372 pages.  Book 9 (out of 30) in the “Stephanie Plum” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime-Humor; Women Sleuths; Beach Read.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Stephanie Plum and Lula have a new assignment.  Track down a missing FTA (“Failure To Appear”) kid named Samuel Singh and bring him in.

 

    This is a top-priority case.  So says Stephanie’s cousin Vinnie, who’s her boss and owner of Vincent Plum’s Bail Bonds.  It turns out Vinnie wrote something called a “visa bond” for Samuel, and if the missing-and-presumed-runaway fugitive can’t be found, Vinnie will lose a lot of money and credibility. Unsurprisingly, he’s very insistent that Singh be found immediately, if not sooner.

 

    Mrs. Apusenja and her daughter Nonnie feel the same way.  Samuel rents a room from the mom, and is betrothed to enter into an arranged marriage with the daughter.  Nobody walks out on something Mrs. Apusenja has arranged.

 

    Nonnie of course also wants her future husband found.  But funnily enough, she seems more concerned about her pet dog, “Boo”.  It seems the pup went missing from their yard the same day Samuel disappeared.

 

    Maybe they ran off together.

 

What’s To Like...

    To The Nines follows the standard plot structure for a Stephanie Plum novel, and that’s a plus, not a minus.  The simple catch-&-cuff task quickly gets more complex.  Various parties-of-interest drop dead, cold cases get warmer, and suspects pop up all over the place.  Stephanie starts receiving flowers from an admirer who wants to kill her, not romance her.  And as if Stephanie doesn't have enough to think about, the Ranger-Morelli-Plum love triangle is alive and cooking.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV (Stephanie’s), and for the most part is set in the Trenton, New Jersey area, plus a quick trip out to Las Vegas by Steph and Lula, the expenses of which can happily can be written off as a trip and picked up by Vinnie,

 

    To The Nines was published in 2003, when 9/11 was a recent occurrence and the airports were struggling with security protocol.  Watching Lula’s misadventures with airport security was hilarious, but also brought back personal memories of business trips during that time.  To boot, Samuel Singh worked in a QC lab; that was my career as well.  Other “signs of the times” included Stephanie using AOL as her e-mail carrier, and Magic The Gathering being all the rage.

 

    There’s action aplenty and it starts right away.  We join Lula and Stephanie as they attempt to capture an FTA named Punky Balog, who has a unique way of showing his disdain for their presence.  Janet Evanovich’s trademark wit and humor is present in abundance, as are Stephanie’s musings about her complicated feelings for Joe Morelli and Ranger.  The mention of the I-40 Interstate resonated with me; I’ve driven it a couple of times over the last couple of years.  And the implication that Scottsdale, Arizona was an awful place to live and work made me chuckle; it's considered an upscale snowbird haven by the rest of us Phoenicians.

 

    Things close with a deadly cat-and-mouse game orchestrated by the baddie.  All turns out well, but… well, we'll talk more about that in a bit.  To The Nines is 372 pages long, covered by 15 chapters, with all the plotlines tied up by the end.  It is both a standalone story and part of a 30-book series, and is still “active”, with the 31^st installment due out this coming November.

 

And for us OCD folks who love to keep track of things:

    Number of FTA’s apprehended: 4

    Number of bodyguards worn out: 2

    Number of cars wrecked by Stephanie : Zero!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 7,219 ratings and 842 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16/5 based on 120,841 ratings and 2,415 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Maybe I’d get more cases if I had more hair.  A lot of people don’t like bald men.  Not that I’m bald, but it’s starting to get thin.”  He smoothed his hand over his few remaining strands of hair.  “You probably didn’t notice that it was thin, but I can tell when the light hits it just right.

    “You should try that chemical stuff you pour on your head,” Grandma said.  “My friend Lois Grizen uses it and she grew some hair.  Only problem was she used it at night and it rubbed off on her pillow and got on her face and now she has to shave twice a day.”  (loc. 1429)

 

    “She’s coming with a dish of my mother’s manicotti.  Have you ever tasted my mother’s manicotti?”

    “You sold me out for manicotti!”

    Morelli grinned and kissed me on the forehead.  “You can have some, too.  And by the way, your hair is cute.”

    I narrowed my eyes at him.  I wasn’t feeling cute.  In fact, I’d decided I didn’t like cute.  Cute wasn’t a word anyone would use to describe Morelli or Ranger.  Cute implied a degree of helplessness.  Kittens were cute.  (loc. 4053)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, To The Nines will run you a mere $2.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the e-books in the series are priced from $2.99 to $9.99.  Janet Evanovich has several other series for your reading pleasure, mostly in the Romance genre, and in the $6.99-$13.99 price range.

 

“I think I might have gotten married to an Elvis impersonator.”  (loc. 2451)

    There’s quite a bit of profanity in To The Nines, but that’s the norm for this series.  There’s a nice selection of cusswords, including eight f-bombs; plus there are a couple of tastefully done rolls-in-the-hay, and one reference to an oral act.

 

    I only spotted one typo: smokey/smoky; and even that one is more a question of the preferred spelling (smoky), rather than being out-and-out wrong.  Kudos to whoever did the editing.

 

    My main gripe is with the ending: it felt contrived, too convenient, and rushed.  It’s difficult to give details without them being spoilers, but here goes.  Two characters get abducted without any details given of how and when.  One of them supplies key information that enables Stephanie to survive the game.  Stephanie’s aiming in total darkness is remarkably accurate, and the cavalry arrives in an unbelievably short time.

 

    Still, the ending was suitably exciting and it got the job done: Good once again wins out against Evil.  Overall, To The Nines was a solid entry in this series, despite the rushed ending.  I enjoyed the book and am eager to read the next one in the series, Ten Big Ones.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  Late in the story, there is mention of peanut butter and olive sandwiches.  Stephanie makes them for supper with Joe Morelli, and it is implied that both of them enjoy such a meal.  El Yucko to the Extremo!

The Devil Colony - James Rollins

   1982; 605 pages (or 647 pages if the short story is included).  New Author? : No.  Book 7 (out of 18) in the “Sigma Force” series.  Genres: Thriller-Suspense; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It’s a major archaeological discovery!  An Indian burial site, hidden away in a cave in the mountains of Utah.

 

    Maggie Grantham and Hank Kanosh, a pair of professors from nearby Brigham Young University, have been dispatched to do the first inspection of the burial ground.  Professor Kanosh is a historian and a member of the Shoshone tribe.  Including him in the excavation will hopefully quell any protests by Native Americans in the area about desecrating their dead.  So will assigning a detachment from the National Guard to the group.

 

    Cross your fingers, guys.  WAHYA, a militant Native American rights group and already known for carrying out headline-grabbing acts of defiance, will almost certainly have something planned against those who would violate a Native American graveyard.  Plus there’s the Ute curse.

 

    That tribe has a legend which says that if anyone enters a sacred burial area in these parts, they must be killed immediately.  Because if they somehow manage to leave the chamber, the world will come to an end.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Devil Colony is a “save the world” thriller that finds Painter Crowe’s Sigma team traipsing all over the globe trying to figure out what’s going on geologically, while at the same time trying not to get killed by the potently secretive group of bad guys known as "The Guild".  Painter himself gets more involved than usual in the case when he learns that his niece Kai is one of the WAHYA operatives.  Meanwhile, Sigma’s operations chief, Grayson Pierce, finds it difficult to focus on saving the Earth while simultaneously attending to his parents’ plight: his father is succumbing to dementia.

 

    Once again, I was in awe of the number of disparate topics that James Rollins weaves into the complex-yet-coherent storyline: the Anasazi, Iceland, Meriwether Lewis, Mormon historical lore, nanotechnology, Yellowstone, Solomon’s Temple, Fort Knox, the Great Seal of the United States, and many more.  I also liked very much that the main baddie is suitably resourceful when carrying out skullduggery against our heroes.

 

    It was fun to learn about a skeleton called “the Kennewick Man”, since I’ve made several business trips to that town in Washington.  There’s a bunch of French phrases in the text which is always a treat for me, and a smidgen of Native American dialects to boot.  The reader even learns a bit of mild Icelandic cussing (see below).

 

    The pacing is fast and furious, like every Action-Thriller should be.  The basic story is 597 pages long, and is divided into 44 chapters plus a prologue.  The chapters usually are introduced with locations, dates, and times, which is useful when trying to remember who is where and doing what.

 

    There’s a bonus short story, 38 pages long, tacked on at the back of the book, and featuring Seichan, a professional assassin and recent addition to the Sigma Force group.  Both tales also come with James Rollins’ trademark “Truth or Fiction” afterword, which I very much appreciate.

 

    The ending is spectacular with a favorable outcome in doubt down to literally the last second.  Humanity is saved (well, you knew that would happen), although The Guild is still alive and well.  The last chapter is an Epilogue with a couple of heartwarming revelations about some of the presumed dead.  Things close with a dazzling Plot Reveal in a six-word last sentence.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 4,011 ratings and 974 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.86*/5, based on 26,982 ratings and 1,329 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

    Fjandinn (n.) : the devil (Icelandic).

    Others: “what the fjandanum” (phrase, half Icelandic).

 

Excerpts...

    Ryan now understood why they were called lava bombs.

    One sailed past overhead, raining flaming ash.  Cinders burned his cheeks, his exposed arms, reminding Ryan all too well that his vehicle had no roof.

    He ignored the pain and focused on the road ahead.  The Jeep bucked and rocked down the steep, rocky trail.  His left fender crumpled against an outcropping, shattering the headlamp on that side.  The Jeep lifted.  For a moment he swore he was driving on a single wheel, like a half-ton ballerina.  (pg. 207)

 

    Kai stared at a thin pall of dust retreating across the badlands.  Painter and the others had wasted no time, gathering gear and flying off in the rented SUV, even taking the dog.

    But not her.

    Earlier, she’d reined in her anger, knowing it would do her no good.  Bitterness still burned like coal in her gut.  She’d been here at the start of all this mess.  She deserved to see it through to the end.  They kept saying that she had to bear the consequences of her actions like a woman, yet still treated her like a child.  (pg. 276)

 

Kowalski plus fireworks.  Not a good combination.  (pg. 563)

    There’s very little to gripe about in The Devil Colony.  The cussing is surprisingly sparse; I counted just six instances in the first 20% of the book.  Later, several f-bombs appear, plus a pair of references to genitalia.

 

    I only noted one miscue: sheered/sheared, which mean someone did a topnotch job of editing.  And some of the “Mormon history beliefs” used as keys to solving various conundrums in the tale are shaky at best, with the author admitting that in the Afterword.  But they contribute to the fascinating storyline, so all’s well that ends well.

 

    This was the seventh book I’ve read in the Sigma Force series.  I have high expectations each time I begin one, and I’ve never yet been disappointed.  The plotlines are complex, the world-building and character development are great, and the storytelling is outstanding.  No wonder James Rollins is my favorite Action-Thriller writer.

 

    9 Stars.  Oh yeah, one last thing.  When’s the last time you read a story where a pod of killer whales (orcas) had a life-saving experience?