Crucible: A Sigma Force Novel

“[Rollins] is what you might end up with if you tossed Michael Crichton and Dan Brown into a particle accelerator together.”

—New York Times Book Review

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?

“When it comes to the blending of action, adventure, history, and science, there is no other author who does it better than Rollins.”

—Booklist

 

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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 for Pierce 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, forcing them to confront the ultimate question: What does it mean to have a soul? |

Praise for the Sigma Force series:

“Rollins’ latest Sigma Force novel is one of the best in the series....The mix of science, history, and high-concept adventure is always first-rate in a Rollins novel....Devotees of Clive Cussler and Steve Berry are no doubt reading Rollins already, but if they’re not, what’s keeping them?”

    - Booklist (starred review)

“James Rollins has written a slew of pulse-pounding, wildly imaginative thrillers. But he tops himself, and everybody else, in The Seventh Plague, a book that exemplifies everything great storytelling is supposed to be.” - Providence Journal

“Bone-chilling.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Fascinating research, beautifully told ... a riveting read.” - Wilbur Smith

“As with his previous novels, Crucible is a top notch ‘science fiction’ thriller which will take the reader on a terrific and terrifying ride.” - Iron Mountain Daily News