Readers of Preston and Child will find many familiar features. Unfortunately, I feel like the familiar features are their more formulaic ones, and this was lacking the extra "something else" to make this book unique. Perhaps it would be more fair to say that the unique parts of this book were not very interesting to me.

This book reminds me of [b:The Andromeda Strain|7670|The Andromeda Strain|Michael Crichton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388889327s/7670.jpg|997271]. That's not really a good thing. I don't really like the "alien infection" plot line. Also, like the Andromeda Strain, this book ends very abruptly with a fairly unsatisfying resolution that renders most of the previous plot development irrelevant.

I've read enough good Preston and Child books that this won't be my last, but this was a disappointing sequel since [b:The Ice Limit|136642|The Ice Limit (Ice Limit #1)|Douglas Preston|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172082459s/136642.jpg|6909481] is my favorite book by these authors.