The Doomsday Conspiracy is very different from Sheldon’s other works. Sheldon’s stories usually feature a strong female protagonist, with a rags to riches story and twists & turns on every page. This one however, is a thriller with shades of science fiction (sort of) with the CIA, spies & UFOs all thrown in the mix.
The story concerns an American naval officer Commander, Robert Bellamy of the US Naval Intelligence, dispatched on a top secret mission. A weather balloon carrying sensitive military information has crashed in Switzerland & Bellamy is assigned by the NSA to locate the 10 people on a tourist bus who saw the crash. But as Robert tries to complete his mission, he discovers that there is lot more to the mission than he is told and a deadly chase begins.
The book can be divided into 2 halves, One with Bellamy tracking down each of the passengers (one at a time, thanks to convenient hints). It’s repetitive but quite enjoyable. The other half deals with unraveling of the mystery and Bellamy criss-crossing entire Europe & more, that carries the reader to Washington, Zurich, Bern, Geneva, London, Munich, Rome, Brussels, Ottawa, Kiev, Bucharest, Naples, and other interesting places ( it really feels like a luxury tour at this point). It’s as if, Bellamy & the readers are running around circles till they reach the eventual climax.
The Climax is quite unbelievable. After reading 400+ pages, you are expecting some answers but the climax feels so abrupt & inane, you feel as if the writer ran out of ideas to finish this book. There are just 5 main characters in this book. So, you can guess the ‘evil villain’ even before the second half begins.
The Doomsday Conspiracy is not very original either in theme or characterization; however, it is a thoroughly slick job of fiction writing. Last but not the least, Dan Brown , the author of The Da Vinci Code, named The Doomsday Conspiracy as the book that inspired him to write thriller fiction, citing its "simplicity of the prose and efficiency of the storyline". So, this may not be one of the best works of Sheldon, but in the end it lead to lot of good things.