The 731 Legacy

The best thing Dan Brown ever did for the publishing world was to cause so much controversy over the highly-mediocre "The DaVinci Code" that it has sparked dozens of other writers to delve into the genre of historical/end-of-the-world/mass paranoia fiction. With "The 731 Legacy", Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore do a masterful job of telling an engaging story that involves religious prophecy, global disaster, mass plague and an unbelievable revenge plot against the U.S. and its' allies by a long-forgotten enemy. The 731 Legacy was the name given to a WWII Japanese program that made the Holocaust look like a walk in the park. Involving torture and murder on an unbelievable scale as well as the earliest workings of germ warfare, the 731 Group sought a means to wipe out all of their enemies in a play for global dominance. An ancestor from this group, and an infamous scientist, has brain-washed thousands of North Korean citizens to allow themselves to be injected with the Black Needles plague and used as human kamikaze bombs in spreading this deadly disease around the world to unsuspecting millions of innocent people. The only people standing in the way of this global disaster is SNN Reporter, Cotten Stone, and her best friend, Cardinal John Tyler. What transpires is a fast-paced novel that moves at break-neck speed and presents the reader with unpredictable turns every step of the way. Everything from a prisoner break-out from within the heart of Dracula's Castle as well as a deal with the devil himself are contained within the pages of this highly ambitious novel. Cannot wait to see what Cotten Stone and John Tyler get themselves into next!

It happens millions of times every day: while you're waiting in line at the grocery store, at the bank, or while you're getting a cup of coffee at your favorite haunt. Most of the time we don't even pay attention; other times we follow it up with a `bless you'. Nobody ever really gives a second thought to a sneeze or a cough, in spite of the stories of how The Bird Flu spread rampantly that way. THE 731 LEGACY will make you rethink all of that. I have read all the novels on the Cotten Stone series and hands-down THE 731 LEGACY is the scariest and darkest in the series. The scariest because it is the most plausible; the darkest because it has Cotten questioning her own faith when forced to make a choice that will decide the fate of the man she loves or forever seal her own. The story opens with a man rushing the local SNN building, calling out for Cotten Stone. Right before the man dies, he whispers two fateful words: Black Needles. While at first these two words don't seem to mean much, Cotten soon learns that they will come to have a significant impact on the US and its allies. You'll follow Cotten as she travels to the cold, wintery Transnistria Mountains, venturing through the stone walls of Vlad Tepes III himself -- in a scene that unfolds like something out of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie -- to the depressed lands of Korea as she struggles to uncover the mystery behind Black Needles. Along the way Cotten's faith will be tested and her past will be brought to the forefront as never before, when she's forced to make a decision that can change everything she's ever done. In the end, the last five-words brought tears to my eyes, as I'm sure it will to any of you Cotten fans out there. Solid characters, surreal settings, political conspiracies and a truly compelling, if not down-right terrifying plot makes THE 731 LEGACY one of my favorite reads of 2008.

This fourth book in the Cotten Stone saga is chilling in its reality, depicting a secret Japanese facility dating to WWII where heinous medical experiments were performed; a bioterrorist plot that is horrifyingly plausible; and a critical confrontation between good and evil at the grande finale. I loved the ending! I won't spoil it for you, but needless to say you'll be left with a smile on your face and a warm glow in your heart. The authors's breakneck pacing and tension-elevating style will have you asking for more.

A very ill man bleeding from many orifices goes to SNN Television network to talk to Nephilim Cotton Stone. With his last dying breath he mutters " Black Needles". His body disappears before an autopsy occurs; the mortuary that picked his corpse up is nowhere to be found. A woman in West Virginia dies from the same virus and her body also goes missing. In the Brazilian Rain Forest a woman of the Yanomomo tribe contacts the virus. Cotton begins to notice the pattern, but is diverted from pursuing the story when the man she loves is kidnapped in an Eastern European country. With the help of former KGB agents, Stone rescues Priest Father John Tyler. During the return she overhears the Father and the Nephilim discuss the abduction as a diversion because Cotton was getting to close to the truth. In North Korea a scientist has found a way to activate a dormant retrovirus that harms humans. She and the country's "Dear Leader" plan to spread this lethal virus around the world; decimating the globe and leaving North Korea as the superpower. When Father John gets the disease, the Son of the Morning gives Cotton a choice.To save him she must surrender to the darkness. THE 731 LEGACY is an enthralling thriller in which a woman with the blood of angels must decide whether to fall to the Nephilim to save her beloved Father John. Cotton knows anyone can be trapped by the darkness, but is prepared to do so willingly by joining the "Old Man" to save the priest. The plague seems plausible which adds to the tension that the readers feel. The protagonist is strong willed chip off of her fallen angelic father's DNA. Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore provide another entertaining, enthralling and creative Stone thriller (see THE HADES PROJECT, THE LAST SECRET and THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY). Harriet Klausner

The forces of evil are hard at work again in The 731 Legacy, the fourth installment in Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore's series featuring Satellite News Network correspondent Cotten Stone. This time, the North Koreans are plotting to unleash an Ebola-like hemorrhagic virus on the world. The virus is the dirty work of Chung Moon Jung, an embittered, Japanese-born doctor who is eager to carry on her parents' work: during World War II they had been part of Japan's covert Unit 731, which conducted research into biological and chemical warfare and, notoriously, was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of their human guinea pigs. The North Koreans are being helped in their gruesome enterprise by Cotten Stone's nemesis, the Dark Lord himself, Lucifer: as regular readers of the series will be aware, Cotten isn't just a reporter; she's also the daughter of Furmiel, one of the Fallen Angels, who rebelled against God but later repented of it. As in previous installments, Cotten's relationship with Cardinal John Tyler is central to the story. The two are a couple in all but deed, devoted to one another but, his position being what it is, incapable of acting on their affection. John winds up needing saving from the bad guys more than once this time around, and Cotten risks everything to rescue him. She in fact gets herself into trouble so deep that extrication from it seems impossible. The 731 Legacy, just as the authors' previous books, starts with a gripping first chapter. The rest of the book is good too: it's well written, and the plot keeps you reading. I have no complaints about the book at all up until its denouement: the final battle between good and evil, because it's fought on an extra-human plane rather than by the protagonists, feels remote and anticlimactic. In addition, the book's last chapter is, frankly, shocking: the plot development it announces is wholly unexpected and, I think, far too sudden. It feels, in fact, like a series-ending conclusion, but there is no indication that this is the last outing for Cotten Stone. Assuming there's a book five, it's going to be a very different animal indeed! -- Debra Hamel