Review: Crucible

Crucible by James Rollins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Last year, James Rollins hit another high-water mark with the thirteenth Sigma Force novel, The Demon Crown - an apt title for a scary-as-hell thriller. Could he, with the fourteenth in the series, come close to matching that scare factor? Why yes, he could, and he has. Crucible is set at Christmastime, but has the chills of an entire October's worth of Halloween movie marathons on AMC. It brings us a dreadful group of extremists who prove themselves the product of the Spanish Inquisition's wildest dreams, stopping at nothing to terrorize the world - and, for extra timeliness, they've got a way of going all-out as they target women. Some of whom are ready to change the world for the better, and some of whom have already changed the world for the better as members of Sigma Force. And how else could we make this modern-day Inquisition vs. the witches tale uniquely Rollins? The inclusion of a new AI, potentially ready to turn against us all as is the greatest fear of many a futurist or genre enthusiast. The story reminds me a lot of Dan Brown's Origin on a couple of levels, but being Rollins, Crucible is a uniquely intense beast, ready to continue its predecessor's trend of keeping things as personal as it gets for our heroes of Sigma Force. And with a lot of neat little touches - calling back to Map of Bones with the return of the Thomas Church and its symbology, teaching a little bit of the Galician language (including a unique curse that I want to add to my repertoire at all times), and some unsettling insight into the POV of Eve, the AI at the center of this plot - it's a stellar reminder of all that I love about the Sigma Force series. And why I'm tempted to write an entire TV series adaptation's worth of teleplays on spec alongside my own original screenwriting work.

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