Amazonia - Bev Russell, Library Director

(This column appeared in the September 16, 2007, Star-Herald)

Readers looking for escapism and adventure might try James Rollins on for size. Rollins is the pseudonym for Jim Czajkowski. (An author whose name has that many consonants probably should have a pseudonym.) Author Rollins actually writes under several pen names, but Rollins is the name he uses for his action/adventure/ thriller novels. This past week I read one of his older books, "Amazonia".

"Amazonia" is a book that had intrigued me for quite a while. As the title indicates, it is set in the Amazon rain forest. A man tumbles out of the jungle—naked, tongue-less, and horribly scarred. Within hours he is dead. He was CIA operative, Agent Gerald Clark. Along with the other members of a research team, Clark had been missing for several years. However, the mystery of the team’s disappearance is minor when compared to the state of Clark’s body. It is full of multiple cancers and oozing sores, but most baffling to the CIA are Clark’s arms. He departed into the Amazon an amputee with only one arm. He immerged from the jungle with two arms.

Clark’s body is shipped to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia for a thorough autopsy; however, another puzzle begins. As Clark’s body travels to Langley, a mysterious plague follows the route that Clark’s body travels. Scientists are at a loss to find a cure. The disease threatens to decimate the United States and Brazil and probably become a global disaster. The research team, which was sent to the jungle to investigate the enigmas surrounding Clark’s disappearance and re-emergence, must now find the cure for this horrible disease.

Nathan Rand, whose father led the vanished team, is sent with the second group to investigate. What he does not realize is that his team is being stalked? Another predatory expedition, commanded by a psychopath and his "witch" mistress, hopes to steal whatever cure Rand discovers. Along the way the searchers face giant caimans and jaguars, mutant amphibians and ravaging locusts—think of the adventures of Tarzan on steroids. The body count is high, and the deaths are bloody—not a book for grandma. I kept wondering who was going to die next. "Amazonia" contains plenty of adventure, action, terror and a touch of science fiction.

The library has three other books by James Rollins "Sandstone" in paperback, "Black Order" in large print, and his most recent "The Judas Strain". They are all set in exotic locales with sinister plots and death-defying adventures. A lost city buried beneath the Arabian Desert is the locale for "Sandstone". "Black Order’ and "The Judas Strain" are both books in Rollins’ Sigma Force Series. The mountains of Nepal, a remote monastery and cannibalistic Buddhist monks provide a background for "Black Order". In "The Judas Strain" a horrific plague arises out of the Indian Ocean. Fans of Michael Crichton might give James Rollins a try.

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