The Judas Strain

There's a smorgasbord of accents and characters in this thriller, and without straining his voice at all Peter Jay Fernandez handles each one credibly. From a young Marco Polo (in a flashback) to a Malaysian mother, Fernandez keeps listeners spellbound as he adroitly maneuvers through this familiar but still engaging plot. The covert Sigma Force team returns in another adventure, this time to combat the re-emergence of an ancient and deadly plague that killed one-third of the world's population in the thirteenth century. Part of the plot strains credulity, but with Fernandez's glib reading there's little reason or time to complain. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

June 4, 2007
The special-ops trained scientists of Sigma Force battle the criminals of the shadowy Guild in bestseller Rollins's lively third Sigma Force thriller (after Black Order
). An ancient and deadly plague, the Judas Strain (which afflicted Marco Polo), has suddenly re-emerged. Gray Pierce, a Sigma operative, and Seichan, a Guild defector, pursue clues to the nature of the plague to the Vatican, Istanbul (with a fine shootout in the Hagia Sophia mosque), Marco Polo's tomb and, finally, Cambodia's Angkor Wat. Meanwhile, Guild members hijack a cruise ship full of plague victims (to provide experimental subjects for the weaponizing of the plague), and Gray's parents are taken hostage (though the senior Grays prove feistier than their kidnappers reckon). Sophisticated the plot isn't, but Rollins includes more than enough action and suspense to keep readers turning pages. 8-city author tour.

March 1, 2007
This exciting but complex and overlong sequel to Rollins's "Black Order" revolves around the government's super-secret Sigma Group, which consists of scientists and military types determined to prevent terrorists from devastating the country and the planet. This time, life on Earth is threatened by the recurrence of an ancient and incredibly vicious and lethal virus, the Judas Strain, which may have been responsible for eco-disasters in millennia past. Sigma is out to halt the virus, but Sigma has an enemy, an equally shadowy group of terrorists called the Guild. Ironically, both want to prevent a catastrophe, but Sigma wants to save humanity, while the Guild wants to control it. Action abounds on almost every page, as the characters from the previous novel range over the globe. There are murders, disfiguring diseases, pirates, cannibals, and, oh yes, people who glow in the dark. As with all Rollins books, this book is great good fun, if readers suspend their disbelief and sense of logic. Recommended for larger thriller collections.Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2007
The crack, ultrasecret Sigma Force team returns in another adventure that, as usual, unfolds at breakneck speed. Sigma Force, made up of former Special Forces officers trained as experts in various scientific fields ("killer scientists," one of their number calls them), scours the world for technologies that could help or threaten the U.S. This time the group's mission involves a devastating bacteriological plague, a mysterious cryptogram that may predate humanity, and the deadly truth about what happened after Marco Polo's expedition to China. After a handful of Sigma Force novels, Rollins has fine-tuned the formula to precision: characters rendered in broad strokes, punchy dialogue, short paragraphs that propel us headlong through the story. The novels are like prose versions of comic books, or lightly fleshed out movie treatments. But this is not a criticism, at least not completely. The books' style perfectly matches their subject matter, and it's impossible not to be swept up by their energy and excitement. Action/adventure fans unfamiliar with Rollins' work should be emphatically urged to read this series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)