Sandstorm (2005)

When a mysterious explosion rips apart a wing of the British Museum, a special force of scientist/soldiers is dispatched to the site. If their fears prove true, this explosion could be only a hint of what might happen if the forces that brought this about are triggered again.

Thriller that keeps you guessing from start to finish. Lots of archaeology and physics and a storm of action accompany the small group of scientists who race the clock to head off a possible disaster. Their task though, is complicated when it becomes apparent, they have not one, but two mysterious organizations also in pursuit of a scientific breakthrough of enormous potential.

And the women are just as kick-ass as the men.

Characterization, settings and plot combine to create a great read. I’ll definitely be continuing this series. ( )

A superb read. I was genuinely breathless at times! As a veteran reader I'd have to say that I can be a bit blinkered about the genres I read. James Rollins has broken through all barriers though, I'm very happy to say. I've read "Sandstorm" two and a bit times (retreading) and I became a hunter as a consequence: hunting for more Sigma Force books lol.

One complaint only: the ebook suffers from formatting faults! Punctuation is either missing or wrong and some text (mostly dialogue!) is split inappropriately :(. It's a shame that the translation to ebook form wasn't taken advantage of it - to remove type errors that are in the printed book. ( )

While writing this, I'm still hesitating: give the book three stars, or should it be four?
For the latter plead reading spead, the joy the book gave me, the way it kept me entangled and curious for what more there was to come.
For three stars plead that the characters were quite predictable, as was the story (it never really surprised me) and the fact that, despite it was a big book, the story was quite straight forward. Okay, there were many characters, but the lines were straight and good to follow, without any special effort. Reading from the blurp,I had expected more a story like a Tom Clancy writes.

Since the story, what the book itself tells me and how, weighs always more than the fact if I speedread it or not, I have decided by now for three stars.
Nevertheless: it was a nice quick read, in an unusual setting and therefor I like it. I might even go look for another book by this author. ( )

I went back to read this, the first of the Sigma Force series, after having read a number of the later books in the series. Surprising to me, it was every bit a good and exciting as the later volumes. ( )

I didn't realize this was the first book in the Sigma series until I read all the others. It was a great story to start the series with. It tells the adventure of one DARPA agent, Painter Crowe, Those who are familiar with the series will know that he's the head of Sigma in the later books. Anyway, it's about his to protect a mysterious source of antimatter that caused an explosion at the British Museum. He meets Safia al Maaz and her close friend Kara Kensington. Joined by a mix of individuals they venture to the Arabian desert. Pursued by Cassandra, Painter's former partner, they manage to stay one step ahead of her and her cohorts who are after the same source.
One thing that was missing was that it's never really revealed what Cassandra and the organization she works for, The Guild, wants with the antimatter source. Or maybe I missed it?
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