The Demon Crown – James Rollins Sigma Force #13
The Demon Crown is Book # 13 in the Sigma Force series from James Rollins. I think it just may be the best book in the series. I have written before that I love books that not only are good stories, but also teach me something new. Well, James Rollins does that just about as well as anyone writing today.
I don’t believe that there are many authors ,who provide six plus pages of notes to their readers, explaining what aspects of the story are true and what was made up by the author. However, that is just what Rollins does with each book. In The Demon Crown there are both a variety of historical and scientific facts that form the basis of the story. So I learn a lot during this Sigma Force adventure!
About the Story
In The Demon Crown the Sigma Force must battle an act of eco-terrorism the likes the world has never seen. While on sabbatical from the Sigma Force Gray Pierce and Seichan are caught up in that attack. An attack by swarm of ancient deadly wasps that may require nuking the Hawaiian Islands to contain the threat!
The swarm is linked to a piece of amber that James Smithson called The Demon Crown. He claimed that what was trapped in that block of Amber, discovered in a salt mine near the Baltic Sea could unleash “the very hordes of hell upon this world”
The Crown is discovered in 1903 by Alexander Graham Bell, when he went to Italy to bring the bones of James Smithson to America. The Crown remained sealed in a hidden room in the Smithsonian until 1944. In that year the Demon Crown was stolen. And now the thief is unleashing those hordes on the world!!
Now Gray, Seichan and the rest of the Sigma Force have three days to discover who.has unleashed this terror. And to find a cure for the havoc the swarm is causing on the environment and the people of Hawaii and on Seichan.
While Gray and Seichan are tracking the perpetrator in the Pacific, another Sigma crew travels to the Baltic and Poland to track down the source of the Demon Crown. As such they hope to find a method to combat the deadly wasps and maybe a possible cure. The trip takes them to Tallinn, Estonia then along the ancient Amber Road to Poland and finally the Weiliczka Salt Mines! The question throughout their quests is will they be in time!!
Bottom Line:
As far as I’m concerned The Demon Crown is a five-star book! It has everything I look for in a thriller. An action-packed fast-moving story, with great characters and a barrel load of stuff that was new to me!
I knew very little about James Smithson the Englishman who bequeathed his scientific collection to the US. That inheritance formed the foundation of the Smithsonian Institute.
Additionally the scientific information about the wasps was at times over my head but was utterly fascinating. And the thoughts of containing an environmental attack like the one portrayed in The Demon Crown was scary!
The Weiliczka Salt Mines
Finally, the information about Amber and the Weiliczka Salt Mines was also extremely interesting. Since I knew nothing about the history of salt mining in Poland. So I obviously didn’t know anything about the Cathedrals, rooms and various carvings I the subterranean labyrinth of the mine. Here is a picture of the show piece of the mine the Chapel of St. Kinga all carved out of salt! You can read more about the mine at Wikipedia and at the web-page for the mine.
Anyway The Demon Crown is great so check it out! As for me, I’m returning to the town of Promise Falls , New York via Linwood Barclay’s latest Parting Shot
