The Sixth Extinction (Jack Rollins)

The Earth has gone through five mass extinctions of living creatures, the fifth and most recent being the dinosaurs. Scientists now believe we are in the midst of a sixth, with 30,000 species dying off each year.

The principal cause is us — humans.

The Sixth Extinction begins with three gruesome deaths witnessed by now-famous naturalist Charles Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle as it lay anchored offshore of Antarctica — Terra Australis Incognito (“The Unknown Southern Land”). This reference will begin to make sense in Chapter 7.

One hundred and eighty-three years later ... a biological threat has been released (accidentally, or intentionally?) from a secret military laboratory near Bodie State Historic Park in California. Was it a saboteur? An inside job?

Enter Painter Crowe, director of Sigma Force, charged with solving scientific/technological global threats. What the lab was working on is too technical and complicated to cover here, except to say they were studying desert varnish — Project Neogenesis. But it’s discussed extensively in Chapter 3. (How’s that for a simple non-explanation?)

Meanwhile, 24-year-old park ranger Jenna Beck witnesses an attempted eradication of the site and escapes an ominous bio-hazardous cloud. Jenna joins Painter’s investigation. Something has escaped during the contamination breach. Worse yet, the death zone is spreading.

Some of the team visits the Halley Research Station in Antarctica for answers, while circumstances lead the Painter and Jenna to Brazil, where they root out something called Dark Eden. Meanwhile it’s storming in California, literally, and despite Sigma’s efforts to contain it, the contagion is spreading. The nuclear option is on the table.

Oh ... did I mention the gigantic underground ecosystem — Hell’s Cape, a “shadow biosphere” — being studied in the Antarctic underground? Unbelievable. I could write an entire blog post on that. But I won’t. You’ll have to find out for yourself. Suffice to say it’s “prehistoric-ish” and what Dark Eden is salivating over.

California, Brazil, Antarctica — three operating theaters, all intrinsically tied together. Tension galore!

Interestingly, in light of what’s happening today, Dark Eden’s purpose hints at an eerie relevance to the current coronavirus pandemic.

Grade: A

The Sixth Extinction: A Sigma Force Novel (#10)

Author: Jack Rollins

Genres: Suspense, Action

HarperCollins (Paperback, 2015)