The Devil Colony by James Rollins, a Mysterious Review.

Review: The top secret government division known as the SIGMA Force is called in when workers at the site of an archeological dig recover artifacts that may relate to the country's origins in The Devil Colony, the seventh political thriller in this series by James Rollins.

A cave along the border between Federal and Native American lands in the Western US is discovered in which the remains of dozens of men and women are found. The bodies bear signs of ritual suicide, but what interests authorities most is a gold-plated skull on which strange markings are etched. A historical artifact, to be sure, but to whom does it belong? The political tug of war is just the start of a series of events that quickly escalate in scope and magnitude … but what troubles the Sigma Force most is that much of what they are experiencing seems to be out of their control — indeed, a natural phenomenon potentially of out everyone's control.

There's a familiarity to The Devil Colony that is both comforting and yet disappointing. It's as if there is some master outline from which the author is working, into which he simply inserts this interesting or fascinating historical or scientific fact (or plausible fiction) and then executes an automated script to fill in the action connecting them. Some readers will enjoy the unwavering predictability of what's going to happen; others will wonder why the author didn't take a bit of a risk and try something just a little different. The underlying storyline is strikingly compelling, the numerous included drawings and depictions of symbols and such are a nice touch, and the locations in which the action takes place are creatively drawn, all well and good, but the interchangeable, generic characters that carry the plot forward fail to make it as engaging as it could have been. There's clearly a market for these novels, and The Devil Colony is decidedly better than most, but — and depending on whether one finds this comforting or disappointing — from a narrative standpoint there is very little to distinguish this thriller from dozens of others.

Acknowledgment: HarperCollins provided a copy of The Devil Colony for this review.

Bloodline
William Morrow (Hardcover), June 2012
ISBN-13: 9780061784798; ISBN-10: 0061784796

The Devil Colony

A SIGMA Force Thriller by James Rollins