Sandstorm: A Sigma Force Novel

The explosive first adventure in James Rollins' bestselling Sigma Force series!A freak explosion in the British museum in London ignites a perilous race for an earth-shaking power source buried deep beneath the sands of history. Painter Crowe is an agent for Sigma Force, a covert arm of the Defense Department tasked with keeping dangerous scientific discoveries out of enemy hands. When an ancient artifact points the way toward the legendary "Atlantis of the Sands," Painter must travel across the world in search of the lost city-and a destructive power beyond imagining.But Painter has competition. A band of ruthless mercenaries, led by a former friend and ally, are also intent on claiming the prize, and they will destroy anyone who gets in their way.Ancient history collides with cutting-edge science-with the safety of the world at stake!

From Publishers Weekly

If he weren't such a good action writer, Rollins might make a dynamite climatologist. Each of his thrillers has featured as a central character an extreme environment, most recently the Arctic ice (Ice Hunt, 2003) and now the hot sands of Saudi Arabia. But while Rollins writes settings and scenes that sizzle, what's caught in the heat are usually familiar characters grappling with far-fetched threats, and so it is here. That one male lead is a danger-courting archeologist named Omaha Dunn seems less parodic than tired, and the novel's premise of a hoard of antimatter hidden in the legendary city of Ubar is almost as ridiculous as the idea that this cache has been guarded for millennia by an order of women who propagate without men, via parthenogenesis. Rollins writes less like Michael Crichton than Stan Lee. Most of his readers won't care, though, because there's just enough scientific gloss on the nonsense to make it palatable, and anyway, what they want, and what he delivers, is action, as Omaha and an American military agent, Painter, join forces with two Mideastern women, one a scientist, the other a billionaire, to locate the steadily destabilizing antimatter before it's snatched by a villainous cabal, or worse, blows up the planet. And that's why they'll buy this book in numbers big enough to have it flirt with national bestseller lists. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap

Nationally bestselling author James Rollins has transported readers to the dark heart of the Amazon, the bowels of the earth, far below the ocean, and the top of the world. Now he embarks upon his most gripping and terrifying adventure yet: to a nightmare buried beneath a treacherous desert wasteland.SANDSTORMAn inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum-a devastating blast that sets off alarms in clandestine organizations around the world, as the race begins to determine how it happened, why it happened, and what it means.Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. And her search for answers is about to lead Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator, into a world they never dreamed actually existed. For new evidence exposed by the tragedy suggests that Ubar, a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, is more than mere legend...and that something astonishing is waiting there.Two extraordinary women and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, are not the only ones being drawn to the desert. Former U.S. Navy SEAL Painter Crowe, a covert government operative and head of an elite counterespionage team, is hunting down a dangerous turncoat, Crowe's onetime partner, to retrieve the vital information she has stolen. And the trial is pointing him toward Ubar.But the many perils inherent in a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmarish secrets to be unearthed at journey's end. What is hidden below the sand is more than a valuable relic of ancient history. It is an ageless power that lives and breathes-an awesome force that could create a utopia or tear down everything humankind has build during millennia of civilisation. Many lives have already been destroyed by ruthless agencies dedicated to guarding its mysteries and harnessing its might. aAnd now the endy may be at hand for Safia, for kara, for Crowe, and for all the interlopers who wish to expose its mysteries, as it prepares to unleash the most terrible storm of all.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR JAMES ROLLINS "Rollins is one of the most inventive storytellers writing today." -- Lincoln Child, coauthor of The Ice Limit "While Clive Cussler maintains the gold standard in action lit, Rollins has a firm grasp on the silver." -- Publishers Weekly "Amazonia is a nonstop thrill-a-minute ride. This is just the book for Indiana Jones fans." -- Tess Gerritsen "Excavation is a real page-turner...A compulsive read." -- Douglas Preston, coauthor of The Ice Limit "[Subterranean is] a gripping deep-Earth adventure." -- Charles Pellegrino, New York Times bestselling author "Rollins writes with intelligence, clarity, and a refreshing sense of humor." -- Kirkus Revkiews "[His] fans have come to expect a fun and fast-paced story that is full of suspense...Rollins delivers Fantastic tales of action and adventure -- Booklist

About the Author

James Rollins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers. His writing has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold more than 20 million books. The New York Times says, " Rollins is what you might wind up with if you tossed Michael Crichton and Dan Brown into a particle accelerator together." NPR calls his work, " Adventurous and enormously engrossing." Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs and historical secrets matched with stunning suspense. As a veterinarian, he had a practice in Sacramento for over a decade and still volunteers at local shelters. Nowadays, Rollins shares his home up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with his two golden retrievers, Echo and Duncan. He also enjoys scuba diving, spelunking, kayaking, and hiking. Of course, he loves to travel and experience new places around the world, which often inspire his next globe-trotting adventure.

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