“Eu non creo nas meigas, mais habelas, hainas.”
I don’t believe in witches, but they do exist. – an old Galician proverb

Synopsis

In the race to save one of their own, Sigma Force must wrestle with the deepest spiritual mysteries of mankind in this mind-expanding adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, told with his trademark blend of cutting edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action.
Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak—until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to “unlock” her mind long enough to ask a few questions.

What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled and blood-soaked books in human history—a Medieval text known as the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. What they uncover hidden deep in the past will reveal a frightening truth in the present and a future on the brink of annihilation, and force them to confront the ultimate question: What does it mean to have a soul?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Authur C. Clarke, 1962, from his essay “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”

My Review

Wow! What an intense adventure with James Rollins latest in the Sigma Force series. This time we’re taken all the way into the Catacombs of Paris. We’re witnesses to how creating something meant for good can be used to affect the entire world; And if those with evil intentions reaches it can spread chaos and death for all of mankind.

Reading this book was so adrenaline filled, it felt like I was running the 100-meter dash over and over again. We are taken through the streets Spain in 1611 A.D. to present day Coimbra, Portugal, where Sigma Force Commander Gray Pierce and his team, race to stop something being used to destroy the world before it’s too late.

Seriously I was in pure agony for a good part of this book, I’m pretty sure my blood pressure rose to where it shouldn’t be. I mean how you gonna do me like that with some of my favourite characters, James Rollins. I love these guys, Gray and Seichan, Kat and Monk.

We get us a few more badass females added to the mix, one of those women is Mara Silviera. And because of their total awesomeness, they’re deemed witches by those who can’t handle their education and skills, I mean we are taken back to when witches were burned at the stake for this very reason. Sorry, I can’t mention anything more or what these women are doing or working on, no spoilers.

If you want pure adrenaline filled,  pulse-pounding action, some history, and present-day education to woo your mind and that will keep you turning pages all through the night, give James Rollins Sigma Force series a go.

10:18 P.M.

Monk leaped over the steps to the porch. His heart pounded in his throat, making it hard to breathe. Panicked, he burst through the door, armed with nothing but his fists. His half-decade in the Green Berets had trained him to immediately assess a situation. His senses stretched out, taking everything in with one breath.

…toppled Christmas tree in the bay window.

…shattered glass top of a coffee table.

…antique Stickley coat rack cracked in half.

…a steel dagger impaled in the banister of the stairs leading up.

…area rug bunched up against a wall.

Gray rushed in behind him, leading with a black pistol gripped in both hands. Monk’s ears, his skin, his entire being noted the heavy silence.

Title: Crucible
Author: James Rollins
Published: January 22, 2019
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Fiction
Number of Pages: 575