Sigma Force is back. Commander Gray Pierce and his team have been assigned to find missing Egyptologist Dr Safia al-Maaz after she is attacked in the British Museum. She was overseeing the autopsy of her colleague, Professor Harold McCabe, who was researching the 10 biblical plagues of Moses when he vanished in the desert. His return to civilisation was marked by two key factors: those who provided care for him on his return died of a fast-acting plague, and his own body appears to have been partially mummified – while he was still alive.

Meanwhile, McCabe’s daughter, Jane, and her father’s young protégé, Derek, try desperately to piece together parts of a puzzle to the plagues of Egypt. Links between her father’s death and a secret society from the past seem to indicate that the world is on the brink of a new era that may well unleash a terrifying biological weapon, a plague like nothing seen since Pharaonic Egypt.

The energy in James Rollins’s writing is palpable. He draws readers in to the action from the outset, creating enough twists and turns in the events to maintain a level of intensity that carries through to the final page.

Reviewed by David Johnson