This is book seven in the Rossler Foundation Mystery series and follows closely on from the events of the previous book, The Phoenix Agenda, when a man called John Brideaux and his followers took control of the world, using ancient technology gained from a secret location. They killed most of those in the secret installation and took their healing machine, turning it into a totally evil purpose, which led to millions around the world dying. The people of the Rossler Foundation went into hiding and refused to accept loss of freedom as their only way of living. The tyrant in charge of his One World Government needed bringing down and soon if the world was to survive.
Alongside the main story, is that of some ancient beings, one group who are creating warriors from ancient tech, the others, survivors of these beings and in another location, watching what is happening in the modern world and wondering who or if they should try and help.
The leaders of the Rossler Group, Daniel and Sarah Rossler, and their colleagues, managed to eventually topple John Brideaux and his minions and this book deals with them taking them into custody and deciding where to keep them until they can be transferred to an international court. Others in the world want these evil men to be killed on the spot, but since Brideaux is American, the American President wanted them held in the States until they could be put on trial.
There is not much of the American Government left and a new President has to be sworn in and quickly, so the people can have hope of a new lease on life and an end to the lack of food, work and living conditions they struggled with under Brideaux. The country is in turmoil and supply lines are non-existent, there is no trade with the rest of the world and gangs have taken over lots of cities. The succession order is followed and the first female President is put in place and sworn in. Unfortunately, one of her generals and part of the government is a very sexist man, putting himself in the place of the president and not accepting easily that she is in charge!
He leads a coup on the White House and ousts the president and puts himself in place as the new president, having a large following in the military and out in the crowds outside, with all his promises of what he will do for them. The new Vice-President is soon black balled and held to blame for everything that occurred when Brideaux took over the world. He and his group found the ancient tech and let it fall into that man’s hands and the general uses that to discredit the actions of the Vice President and his promises.
Soon there are attacks on all sides and chaos is coming to this new world situation. There are two major forces looking to return the world to the nightmare it has only just been recovered from and Daniel and the Rossler Group are key to trying to stop this from happening. There are lots of secret passages from the White House, old monorail and tunnel systems, many known of from real modern history, and secret underground bunkers and hiding places for some to use to keep safe from the dangers all around them.
A great adventure and whilst I haven’t managed to read most of the other books in this series, I didn’t feel like I had missed out on too much information to enable me to follow this storyline. Yes, I would love to read all the books and read them in order, but that doesn’t always happen. The Rossler group and the characters in it are an interesting mix. The ancient beings are a mixed bunch, some with world domination on their minds, whilst the others are willing to see how advanced the modern people are, what they are doing and only intervene if necessary.
I will have to go back and catch up with the others in the series and look forward to the next one as well. I received an ARC copy of this book from Hidden Gems and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.