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There are a lot of thrills of a certain kind to be had in BLOOD LINE, the latest thriller by James Rollins. As the book opens, a pregnant young woman on a yacht off the coast of Somalia is brutally kidnapped and her husband is beheaded. It turns out that she is the daughter of US President James T. Gant, and she is running away from what she believes to be a threat to herself and her unborn child. However, she seems to have run right into the hands of those who threatened her. Commander Gray Pierce leads a special task force of high level operatives tasked with finding her. Some of these are a part of Sigma Force, a group like the Navy Seals. They also recruit a man, Tucker Wayne, who used to be in an elite unit but is now on his own. He is a loner except for the close relationship he has with his military dog Kane, and some of the most interesting parts of the book are told from the prospective of what Kane is "thinking." The Gants are a wealthy and well-connected family with a history going back many centuries. A secret guild also hundreds of years old seems to be operating today, and it seems to be related to the Gants. They are trying to find the secret to immortality. This is somehow related to the child Amanda is carrying, which is not her husband's. Unable to conceive, she had gone to a very exclusive fertility clinic and been inseminated. There seems to be something unique about the boy child she is carrying, and it soon becomes apparent that he is the object of desire for her kidnappers. Amanda's kidnappers are not ordinary Somali pirates. They sweep her away to a sterile clinic high in the mountains and prepare to give her a forced Caesarean. We get glints of other horrific experiments going on as well. Back in the States, two of the operatives infiltrate the fertility clinic where Amanda had gone. What they discover about what happens to women at this place will make your skin crawl. Whoever is behind the experiments is also creating creatures that are half human and half robot, with deadly claws and aggressive dispositions. Our heroes have a number of nearly fatal run-ins with these creatures, but not before they sink an island off the coast of Dubai, almost drowning to accomplish part of their mission. There are a number of surprises along the way. Rollins knows how to pull his punches and the secret of who is behind it all is not easily discovered. In an afterword, the author explains that many of the ideas on immortality and robotics found in the book are based on real science. I am not sure if that matters. One would read this book for the action and the thrills, rather than for its scientific accuracy, and it certainly does provide those. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, June 2012
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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