James Rollins' latest Sigma Force thriller, The Last Odyssey (#886) is out in March. It begins in ice and ends in fire with the reader convinced that there is no way out of danger for the "good guys". Here Rollins has mined some fascinating material from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to plausibly locate some of the actual locations Homer describes in his ancient poetry, proving that there could be fact at the core of what later scholars labelled as myths. Or do they all? That's what drives the plot of this fast-paced action novel as Sigma Force pursues a cabal of ruthless unknowns bent on discovering and using the Gates of Hell for themselves.
Sigma is involved when the archaeologist daughter of a US Senator is kidnapped from a newly discovered ship from the Middle Ages found marooned in a glacier in Greenland. The discovery hasn't been publicized, so why did a group of commandos speaking Arabic show up there? The pursuit is on to Rome, to the Mediterranean, and on to Turkey and back again as those holding Dr. Elena Cargill try to retrace the route Odysseus took on his voyage home with her unwilling aid. Each stop is seemingly more dangerous than the last, and the members of Sigma Force can't be sure of who is friend or who is foe as loyalties shift and they try to stay one step ahead of Elena's kidnappers.
I always appreciate the mixture of fact and fiction Rollins uses, both scientific and historical. His exploration of the ancient world here was particularly appealing to me, but you don't have to know anything about Greek mythology to enjoy the ride here. As always, Rollins separates out the truth from his imagination at the end of the book and encourages the reader to learn more on his or her own.
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