Sandstorm

James Rollins labels his book Sandstorm (#33) the Prequel to the Sigma Series.  I haven't been able to read this series in order, but this is the last Sigma book I've read.  I'm now caught up.  This one starts out in Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, and then cuts to the British Museum in London, but the bulk of action in this story takes place in Oman, on the Arabian Pennisula.  The plot turns on a scientific anomaly connected with the lost city of Ubar.   This was the place Lawrence of Arabia dubbed the "Atlantis of the Sands" and was recently rediscovered in Nicholas Clapp in the 1990s. 

A mysterious explosion in the Kensington Collection at the British Museum sets an international cat-and-mouse game in deadly motion.  As with all of Mr. Rollins' books, the action is fast-paced, page-turning, and cliff-hanging with a high body count.  It's entertaining, of course, but you also do learn a few things along the way, and Mr. Rollins does suggest further reading for those who are interested in the topics and places mentioned in the book.

I think the Arabian Pennisula is fascinating.  Didn't you love A Thousand and One Arabian Nights when you were growing up?  I've decided, though, that if I were ever fortunate enough to visit there, I'd much prefer to go there via Oman rather than Saudi Arabia!  It just so happens that in the last two weeks I've read about the Rub' al-Khali, or the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Penninsula, twice; in Sandstorm and Zoe Ferraris' City of Veils, where much of the climactic action of the books takes place in the middle of a fierce sandstorm.  What are the odds in two such otherwise different and recommended books?