Midnight Ink © 2008, 384 pages

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.

[INSET TEXT: 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!

Tags: book reviews, books, Joe Moore, Lynn Sholes, Unit 731