Kingdom of Bones - James Rollins

    2022; 441 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 16 (out of 18) in the “Sigma Force” series.  Genres: Thriller; Africa; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah…

 

    Actually, the ants were marching million by millions, and what was really strange was that red ants were marching alongside black ants.  This is in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where lots of creatures have just started conducting themselves strangely.

 

    Most worrisome is the fact that many of the creatures are exhibiting unusually aggressive behavior.  The baboons are openly attacking humans.  So are the jackals, bats, and hippos.  And the aardwolves.  (Huh?!  Are those even real?)  Worst of all are the Q-UGVs.  (Say what?!)

 

    Some sort of infection is suspected to be the root cause of this, since such a wide variety of animals seem to be suddenly confrontational.  Maybe it’s a newly spawned killer virus, since those little buggers are constantly mutating.  That’s all we need, some highly infectious, hyper-deadly follow-up to the Covid plague.

 

    Hey, I have an idea!  Let’s send Sigma Force over there to investigate.  With a little bit of luck, they can figure out what’s going on before they all catch the virus and keel over dead.

 

What’s To Like...

    Kingdom of Bones is another “end of the world” thriller from the master of that genre, James Rollins.  Yeah, there are lots of killer-plague novels out there, but Rollins gives the storyline an unusual twist.  The plague is spreading so fast that, by the time an antidote is developed, we might all be dead.  So Sigma Force needs to focus on figuring out what the root cause is, and see if they can reverse the process.

 

    I enjoyed the setting: equatorial Africa.  Rollins’s world-building efforts are always well-researched, which makes them convincingly realistic.  Thanks to historically poor European colonization decisions, Africa suffers from constant political turmoil, and Sigma Force has to confront both rogue armies and environmental indifference.

 

    There is a historical angle to the plotline as well.  The opening Prologue introduces the Reverend William Sheppard who, in the 1890s, railed about atrocities being committed by the Belgian military against native African tribes.  Later on, the legendary Prester John plays a part in the storyline.  Wiki him.

 

    The text has a bit of French sprinkled in, along with a bunch of Bantu phrases, which made the dialogue realistic.  The head bad guy is reasonably resourceful, which I always like.  It was fun to learn why bats don’t get sick, and that no one’s really sure why pygmies evolved.  I chuckled at the mention of psilocybin mushrooms, this was the second book in a row that featured those things.

 

    The ending is a two-stage affair.  Both the bad guys and the spreading plague have to be stopped.  Things close with the “Author’s Note: Truth or Fiction”, a James Rollins specialty that, as always , is utterly fascinating.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 5,947 ratings and 251 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.19*/5, based on 9,693 ratings and 742 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “The consensus had been to simply shoot you two.”

    Jameson paled and backed up a step.

    Draper lifted a palm.  “But I advocated for taking advantage of your knowledge and skill.  It’s not like you can escape this island.  And beyond discretion, time is also tantamount.  We can’t clamp a lid on this matter forever.”

    “What do you expect us to do?” Charlotte asked.

    Draper shrugged.  “Be useful.”

    She understood the unspoken caveat.

    Or die.  (pg. 109)

 

    Gray held his breath—then one of the jackals lunged and snapped in their direction.  Gray crouched lower, tightening his aim.

    “Don’t,” Benjie whispered.

    It took all of Gray’s effort to loosen his finger on the trigger.  He glared down his gunsight at the jackal.

    The beast backed off, but not out of fear.

    “It’s just posturing,” Benjie explained.  “A display of aggression.  Ignore it.”

    Kowalski grunted.  “Tell that to my wet drawers.”

    “That might help actually,” Benjie said.  “Urine leaking is a sign of submission/”

    Kowalski scowled.  “I’m really beginning to hate you.”  (pg. 239)

 

“Get ready!  We’re about to play the worst game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.”  (pg. 275)

    For an action-packed thrills-&-spills tale, there’s a surprisingly light amount of profanity in Kingdom of Bones.  I counted just 9 instances in the first 50% of the book.

 

     It’s also hard to find things to quibble about.  Some reviewers thought the text about researching the virus was too “sciencey”.  I thought it was great, but that may be because I’m a chemist by trade.  The only nit I have to pick is that one of the key members of the Sigma Force team, Seichan, is totally absent here.  But Rollins assures us in the Afterword that she’ll be back in the next book.

 

    I have high expectations anytime I read a Sigma Force book, and once again, I was not disappointed.  The action is plentiful, the human interactions are topnotch, the worldbuilding is convincing, and the plotlines are complex.  This is the sixteenth book in the series, and it hasn’t gone stale yet.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  In case you’re wondering, “aardwolves” are indeed real.  Wikipedia even has a section about them.