The fourth entry in James Rollins's Sigma Force series is The Judas Strain. The book follows our regular heroes (Gray Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, Kat Bryant, Painter Crowe, Lisa Cummings) as they try to once again thwart the Guild and the Imperial Dragon Court. This time, the very existence of life on Earth is at stake.The book begins with Marco Polo, who carried a dark secret with him to the grave. It is up to the heroes of Sigma Force to track down the clues he left behind and save the day.
Meanwhile, on a hospital ship in the south Pacific, Monk and Lisa are battling an unknown disease, which they learn is a Judas Strain, is virus or disease capable of causing mass extinction. The Guild is seeking to master the Judas Strain as a weapon.
The hospital ship is commandeered and taken deep into the Indonesian archipelago. Monk and Lisa unite a divided crew to escape and reclaim the ship, which is eventually sunk.
Gray and the others follow Marco Polo's clues to the Angkor Wat temple complex, where they find a room covered in "angelic script" or proto-Hebrew. Gray and the crew learn that Marco Polo had found a "vaccination" for the Judas Strain, and that one of the passengers on the doomed hospital ship carries the ability to negate the strain.
She is rushed to the temple complex, where she works her magic and saves the world. Unfortunately, Monk Kokkalis is lost. The only thing they find of him is his prosthetic hand (he lost his hand in Map of Bones). After the danger is quelled, Gray Pierce and the rest of Sigma Force meet for a funeral, where the plan to bury the hand, as it is all that is left of Monk. As Gray is leaving, one finger on the hand taps out S-O-S.
Rollins is quickly becoming the master of the spy-thriller-scifi genre. The Sigma Force series confirms such diagnosis.
Final Grade: A-
Re-readability: 8.9
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