The 6th Extinction

Wow! I've been a fan of the Sigma Force series for a few years now, and I just loved The 6th Extinction. This is the 10th book in the series, and it's still going strong. As with all the previous books, there's a good mix of history and real-world science. Unlike in the previous books, the history isn't as central to the plot, though.

Very often in the previous books, Sigma Force would be perusing clues found in the historical record while being chased by bad guys. In this on, they're still being chased by bad guys, but the historical part only includes a few mentions of Darwin, Admiral Byrd, and a secret Nazi Antarctic submarine base.

There are gunfights, explosions, a threat (or three) to the safety of the world, and a trip through a truly alien world. It;s great fun, and it's scary to think how much of the science is real.

Frankenstorm

Have you ever seen the movie 28 Days Later? It's the one where an environmental group frees some chimps that are infected with a rage virus and soon everybody's turned into crazy killers. Ray Garton's Frankenstorm is kind of like that, but there are differences.

For one thing the book takes place during the release of the infected instead of 28 days later. For another thing, the test subjects are homeless people instead of chimps. On top of that, the story is set in California during a hurricane.

This means that instead of being a zombie-esque horror tale, Frankenstorm is more of a horror/sci-fi/thriller. It's a good story with a great deal of conflict involving infected people, a militia, a mad scientist, a secret government black-ops organization, drug dealers, and a sheriff's deputy who's insane before being exposed to the virus.

The book also includes a bonus short story called "The Guy Down the Street." It's a disturbing little tale that I didn't find as enjoyable as the novel.

This book is just good fun, if you idea of fun involves lots of gore and violence.

FaceOff

The title of this book is slightly misleading. Instead of being a collection of stories where the characters FaceOff,it most of the stories involve characters teaming up. Of course, TeamUp wouldn't really have been as cool of a title.

As this book was written to benefit the International Thriller Writers, the characters in question are from popular thriller series. At least I assume they're popular. I'm not really all that well read in the genre and mainly picked the book up for the Repairman Jack story and the story with Grayson Pierce of Sigma Force. While most of the stories weren't super great, I generally enjoyed them and will probably try to read the original series the various characters came from.

I might as  well give my thoughts on the individual stories:

"Red Eye" featuring Denis Lehane's Patrick Kenzie and Michael Connely's Harry Bosch - I definitely enjoyed this story of a detective and a cop teaming up to rescue a little girl from a pedophile. It was a good lead off for the book.

"In the Nick of Time" featuring Ian Rankin's John Rebus and Peter Jame's Roy Grace - This one was more of mystery than a thriller. It is about two British cops solving a 50 year old stabbing case after a man confesses on his deathbed. It wasn't as action-filled as I'd expect from a thriller, but it was still good.

"Gaslighted" featuring R. L. Stine's Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy and Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's Aloysius Pendergast - I did enjoy this one, but I was rather disappointed by how little a part Slappy played in the story. Still, not having read the Goosebumps books, for all I know he could have just sat there and stared at people in them, too.

"The Laughing Buddha" featuring M. J. Rose's Malachai Samuels and Lisa Gardener's D. D. Warren - This is another one that's a bit more of a mystery than a thriller. It involves the murder of an antiques dealer and reincarnation, which does make for a good story. While I enjoyed it, I don't think the crossover aspect worked that well and almost felt tacked on.

"Surfing the Panther" featuring Steve Martini's Paul Madriani and Linda Fairstein's Alexandra Cooper - Legal thrillers aren't my cup of tea. I did still enjoy it, but not as much as the others.

"Rhymes with Prey" featuring Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme and John Sandford's Lucas Davenport - This was definitely my least favorite story in the collection, which is unfortunate as it is also by far the longest story in the collection. I think the length might be part of the issue I had with this, as the story just seemed to drag.

"Infernal Night" featuring F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack and Heather Graham's Michael Quinn - This was the story I was most looking forward to, and while I enjoyed it, it didn't feel very Repairman Jack-ish. I think it might just be that Jack works best in New York, and this is set in New Orleans.

"Pit Stop" featuring Raymond Khoury's Sean Reilly and Linwood Barcaly's Glen Garber - This was one of the more fast-paced stories. It involves a car chase, a kidnapped girl, and a deadly bioweapon. It's a good story.

"Silent Hunt" featuring John Lescroart's Wyatt Hunt and T. Jefferson Parker's Joe Trona - While this story starts off slow, it has a lot of action involving Mexican drug traffickers and a gold mine. It's a cool story with an ending I liked a lot.

"The Devil's Bones" featuring Steve Berry's Cotton Malone and James Rollin's Gray Pierce - This is the story I was second most anxious to read, and I actually enjoyed in more than the Repairman Jack story. This is a team up that worked very well, and produced a story with lots of action.

"Good and Valuable Consideration" featuring Lee Child's Jack Reacher and Joseph Finder's Nick Heller - Two thriller heroes walk into a bar ... it sounds like some sort of joke, but it's the premise of this story. It's not a bad story but it's not as actiony as I'd like for the finale of a collection of thrillers.

While the book could have been better, it's still well worth reading, especially since it supports a worthy cause.

Innocent Blood

I was lucky enough to get a review copy of Innocent Blood, by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell, and I must say that I really enjoyed it, though not as much as I enjoy Rollins' Sigma Series.

The premise for this series is that the Vatican has a secret sect of vampiric priests known as the Sanguinists. They are tasked with, among other things, killing or converting the evil rogue vampires.

The plot revolves around a human archeologist, a human soldier, and one of the Sanguinists. In the previous volume, this trio recovered the Blood Gospel, which was written by Jesus in His own blood. In this volume, they are attempting to use the Gospel to prevent the apocalypse, which is being caused by an immortal Judas Iscariot.

The story has plenty of action and mysteries. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but some may be turned off by the Catholic worldview of the story.

Bloodline

The first time I read one of James Rollins' Sigma Force stories was way back in 2007 when I read the Thriller anthology. Despite the fact that I didn't actually mention that story in the review, I really enjoyed it. A few years later, I received unrequested review copies of The Doomsday Key and The Devil Colony, and despite reading them, I never got around to writing reviews for them. They did inspire me to buy the rest of the series, though. Last week, I received a review copy of the latest Sigma Force novel, Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel, and this time I'm going to review it.

For anyone who may not be familiar with the series, Sigma Force is a secret government organization that's part of  DARPA. It's a team of former soldiers, mostly ex-special forces, who also hold advanced scientific degrees. They battle against scientific threats to the world, mostly in the form of a criminal organization called the Guild. Most of the stories are tied to the historical record and cutting edge science. It's better than I make it sound.

In this story, the Guild has kidnapped the president's daughter, and agent Gray Pierce and former assassin Seichan, along with non-team members Tucker Wayne and his dog Kane, are sent to rescue her. The whole series of events is part of a centuries long plot by the Guild--which includes members of the president's family--to unlock the secrets of immortality.

This is a great adventure story. You should get it and the rest of the series.

Assassin's Code

Assassin's Code: A Joe Ledger Novel is the first of Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger novels that I've read. I do have a copy of Patient Zero on my Kindle, but I haven't gotten to it yet.  Being unfamiliar with the backstory did make things a little confusing, but much of it is hinted at in the book itself.

From what I gather, Joe Ledger is a commando, or something of that nature, who works for a secret government organization called the DMS. He and his team are in Iran, where they have just rescued a kidnapped group of American Hikers. Afterwards, Joe is forced to meet with an Iranian official who ask Joe to find some stolen nukes.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the nukes are in the hands of a cult of vampires.

This leads to a lot of fighting, and shooting, and people getting their throats torn out, which is all very satisfying in a thriller. It also leads to a heck of a lot of phone calls being made. At some points it seemed like Joe would either be calling someone or getting a phone call from someone just about every other page. This slowed down the pace a good bit, but didn't detract from the overall story too much. It's still a very thrilling book.

Thriller, edited by James Patterson

The main reason I bought the Thriller anthology is because it contains a Repairman Jack short story. As a rule, I don't read a lot of books that would be classified as a thriller. Still, I largely enjoyed this collection.

I won't get into detail on each story, but I will point out some of the high- (and low-)points. I like F. Paul Wilson's "Interlude at Duane's," but then I like most of his Repairman Jack stories. J. A. Konrath's "Epitaph," was pretty damn good, too. I like Heather Graham's "The Face in the Window," because it was suspenseful.There were some vaguely supernatural elements in David Dun's "Spirit Walker," which makes it border-line fantasy. I really liked Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's "Gone Fishing." The only story I didn't like so much was Dennis Lynds' "Success of Mission," and even that wasn't bad; it just felt out of place, because it was written in the sixties and the other stories were written specifically for this anthology.

Over all, I highly recommend this book. I give Thriller four yo-yos.