The Desert of Glass

Monument #2

by Michael C. Grumley

One of mankind's greatest secrets... has been hiding in plain sight for three thousand years.

Half a century ago, an aberration was spotted by one of our earliest satellites, and summarily dismissed as a hardware malfunction. But it was no aberration. And no malfunction. It was an accidental glimpse of something extraordinary, and very old.

Mocked for decades, the man who designed the satellite is now dead. With the system's original data firmly in the hands of former NTSB investigator Joe Rickards and anthropologist Angela Reed.

But the data is only to be shared with one other person besides them: a seventy-five-year-old NASA engineer who was part of the original program.

Joe Rickards is convinced it will lead mankind into darkness.

Angela believes it may be the answer the modern world has been longing for.

And former NASA engineer Leonard Townsend hasn't the slightest idea what he's about to get involved in.


To make matters worse, through a strange bedside confession, a journalist thousands of miles away has just learned that someone else already knows about the satellite's fifty-year-old discovery.

Because they've been secretly using it for years.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Paranormal, Suspense, Action

376 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2021

About the author

Michael C. Grumley is the author of the best-selling BREAKTHROUGH series with over two million books sold. He lives in Northern California with his two young daughters. He’s an avid reader, runner and most of all father, and dotes on his girls every chance he gets. He loves hearing from readers while he works on the next ROLLBACK book.

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live what Michael Grumley is able to achieve with his writing - a story that mixes his imagination with elements of science and history. His characters are imperfect and often struggling with painful pasts, and some show admirable moral beliefs. Enjoyable

[Wendy LaBounty · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you do nothing else tonight, read 'The Desert of Glass.' This riveting book by Michael C. Grumley, about amazing Earth facts I sure didn't know, will grab and twist you in knots. Former NTSB investigator Joe Rickards and his friend, anthropologist Angela Reed are delving into the mysteries of energy fields deep in the earth, which takes them to Egypt to begin their search. But that's just the beginning of a tale that will hold you in its grasp straight through until the end. The characters are very realistic, the setting interesting, and the storyline simply incredible. Do yourself a favor and read 'The Desert of Glass.'

[Lisa Omstead · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read every story written by this author and always will. He never fails to keep my attention and I learn the most interesting facts while reading his spell-binding books. As usual, this latest series has kept me guessing what will happen next and rarely (if ever) being correct.

[Reynie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Desert of Glass is a terrific and entertaining read! I’m so glad I re-read The Last Monument first. It was great to be reunited with Joe and Angela and enjoy another mind-boggling, page-turning adventure with them. Once again, I am impressed by Grumley's extensive research and the wealth of detailed information shared with the reader. Even as a scientist, I wasn’t aware just how weird and mysterious Quantum Energy is. Very illuminating and intriguing to discover more about the world of Quantum Physics! I eagerly await the third Monument book!

[Todd Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Rickkards (The Last Monument) returns. A glass spire in Bolivia and a Sea of glass in Egypt.
Add in a reclusive billionaire. suspicious orphanages, a dedicated reporter, and a some bad guys attempting to cover up something and you have a good read. Could not put down.

[Margaret G. Whitson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite author

Love every book that Michael Grumley writes! This book was excellent. Sorry to see it end. Please write faster Mr. Grumley! Looking forward to the next book.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael C Grumley Does It Again!

Another unputdownable story full of interesting characters, suspense, twists and turns. My only issue is that I read this in one sitting and now have nothing as interesting or entertaining to read!

[Amy Spielman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an exciting amazing, full of truths and facts at the same time a great novel. I have read all of Michael Grumley's books and have never been disappointed. He is full of great ideas and his facts of any book you read are amazing.
Run don't walk to read this book.

[Joe Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good read

Story line was excellent, loved the people and the action.Still trying to understand the science since some of it is real and some not.This book is worth the time and money to read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another grand slam of a book!

Michael Grumley doesn't disappoint! This is a fast-paced thriller that will keep you guessing, along with plenty of physics for we nerdy types!

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read. Mr Grumley has taken real questions of what and why of our world and intertwined them with real people stories & issues. The cast of characters are interesting and fallible. He has done his due diligence with research on the science and history of his storytelling.

[Lee-sa Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, edge of your seat exciting

Wow, what a follow-up. The suspense will have you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommend reading this book.

[Kristina Free · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary

I couldn't put any books in this series down. It's fast paced and the story is fantastical get believable. Read these books you will be glad you did.

[Page Craw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Grumley’s stories never disappoint. His inventiveness is laced with facts. I always feel a little smarter when I’ve finished his book. Well done!

[Jim Rickard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Strange things though

I enjoyed this book as well as his others. Kind of strange though. Good plot, different type of ending. I will read more of his books

[HERNA Mittens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book to read after a long week

[Mary A. Muchowicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Desert of Glass" is the sequel to "The Last Monument" by Michael Grumley and these two are the best of all the books he has written. Stolen from the tomb of Akhenaten decades ago, was a book written in Sumerian that told of how to use the powerful force in the Desert of Glass in Egypt. Mido Saad used that knowledge and the lives of thousands of children to predict natural disasters and to be nearby with a Construction company and ready to rebuild to make billions. He carefully hid his wealth and quietly exerted his power while appearing to be a great philanthropist that built orphanages to help children who were without families. It is not until an Egyptian hero (a pilot) is dying and passes a folder of information to an obscure female journalist, that Saad's philanthropy begins to be questions. Mona Baraka is investigating what he is actually using the children for after discovering that they are turned over to UNICEF with huge donations after their minds have been severely damaged. Joe Rickards and Angela Reed had taken the information Mike Morton sent Angela before his death and find Leonard Townsend and ask his help in analyzing the data and finding the second power source in the Desert of Glass. With Saad's men trying to eliminate anyone who has been researching him, Mona joins with the Americans in trying to rescue Eshe from Saad and stopping his ghastly plans to keep his empire going on forever. This is quite a spellbinding read and again as with his Breakthrough series of books, I love the blend of Science, Archeology, History, Politics, Religion, etc. You can quite literally sit down and get lost within this book. Can't wait for the next book in this series.

[Snot · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I really enjoyed this book, I kept getting confused on which characters were which and what was going on. This book was no where near as good as the first one but it was still enjoyable. The ending left me somewhat unsatisfied, but I'm hoping the next book will fix that.

[William S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The continuing adventures of Joe and Angela

So this episode is built on a slow revelation of a mystery. Therefore telling any part of the mystery would be contrary to the author's purpose, and a spoiler. This is kind of a continuation of the monument, but reads like a different story altogether. I enjoyed the story as it progressed, but the ending left me with a bad taste as various parts of the mystery were left unanswered. It seems there will be a sequel since a couple of unanswered mysteries were added at the end, and have no purpose but to lead into the next book. There is no doubt that this is real science fiction built on the basic principle espoused by Heinlein that the science be based upon real science. Unlike Heinlein, however, is that Mr Grumley seems to like to stray into the surreal. That's okay, but I see no reason why he can't finish the story so the book stands on its own merits.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only got halfway through, just wasn't into picking it up to continue reading. I need to do this more. I tend to choose pretty good books (picky) and find myself once in a while grinding through something I'm not enjoying. Life is too short :)

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh or worse

I picked up THE DESERT OF GLASS through my Kindle Unlimited subscription, having recognized author MC Grumley's name from a mostly excellent sci-fi series that started with BREAKTHROUGH (also the name of the series). THE DESERT OF GLASS starts out in the middle of a story with characters that we are supposed to know well. The names of these characters seemed vaguely familiar and after reading a few dozen pages I went back through my old reviews and found a lukewarm review of what I thought was a stand-alone novel of Grumley's, THE LAST MONUMENT. That novel started out with an interesting mystery and and Indiana Jones-like globe hopping adventure with the requisite bad guys chasing our two intrepid heroes until completely degenerating into sheer fantasy at the very end, leading to a lukewarm (and generous) 3 star review.

I had absolutely no clue that it was the start of a new series, hence my confusion when first beginning THE DESERT OF GLASS, and any potential readers should know that reading THE LAST MONUMENT before THE DESERT OF GLASS is an absolute must or one will not understand anything about the main characters or their backstories.

It turns out that the prime motivator of this sequel is to follow up on what was revealed in the last 20 or 30 pages of THE LAST MONUMENT. The writing was OK, but as a purported sci-fi novel, what little science there is was horribly weak (unlike the BREAKTHROUGH series in which the science was pretty much cutting edge). THE DESERT OF GLASS was notable for containing several attempts by an elderly physicist to explain the bizarre and beautiful mysteries of quantum physics to a couple of laymen, with disastrous results. This was probably the most garbled and incomprehensible discussion of quantum physics ever. But the bad science doesn't stop there. There are laughable descriptions of neurons and electrons, an incorrect (by a decade) date for the Arab-Israeli war, and gibberish statements about energy and fields.

If you can get past all that, there is an interesting story about a very (very) old man and a very (very) old Sumerian manuscript and child trafficking that somehow ties into whatever it was that was revealed at the end of THE LAST MONUMENT. The end.

Not recommended, with a very generous 2 stars.

JM Tepper

[Robert Brockman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This wouldn’t even make a good short story

The plot is not only absurd, it’s incomprehensible. Most of the book is devoted to conversation that really doesn’t move the story along. However, the author does write good dialogue, even though it doesn’t help character development. Maybe he could write scripts for Hallmark movies. And would someone give the author a simple description of quantum entanglement? He’s clearly doesn’t get it.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in a series that I had to go and look to see if I had even read the first book. I had, but I will admit that it took me a little while to remember everything that was happening.

For the most part, I did enjoy this book. Some of the events going on seemed to go over my head. I mean, I get the fact that when "quantum physics" are involved, things are not really supposed to completely make sense, but there were moments where I had a hard time staying in the story. There is a lot for the reader to have to believe, and some of it is downright awful. The premise itself was interesting, and that pretty much saved everything for me.

We are left with a kind of open ended conclusion, so I'm thinking that this might not be the last book. I did enjoy it once I decided to stop trying to figure it out and just go along on the ride.

Will I continue if there is another book? Yep, probably.

[Tom Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost great

Mr. Grumley writes much better than most Kindle Unlimited authors. But while he writes interesting stories and above average characters, he doesn’t always write believable scenarios and his characters often act unrealistically.

Case in point, and I don’t consider this a spoiler because it has NO EFFECT on the story and has no reason to be in the book that I can discern, but there is a scene on a commercial airliner where one of the characters is key to working with an Air Marshall to stop a terrorist takeover of the plane.

He does this by helping the Air Marshall take on FIVE violent men who are fighting him and the Air Marshall in the back rows near a toilet.

After this is over, he goes back to his seat and doesn’t tell anyone what happened. When they land, he leaves the plane with his friends they never know what happened!

There is NO WORLD in which this could happen and you wouldn’t be tied up in hours of statements and questions and debrief. It’s so unrealistic that it drags you out of the story and you are smacked in the face with the unreality of the scene, leaving you estranged from the story as you try to make sense of it all.

Even worse, as I said, it has no bearing on the story. It is just filled that makes the story harder to believe.

Other examples are the characters often having very dramatic experiences and don’t get asked by their friends what happened, nor do they share it with one another until it is dramatically expedient.

Additionally, there are a great many details that are not explained with the Hereditary-like story and leave you with the feeling that the author just cheated, and ignored the rules so he could make the story work.

I give this story 3.5 stars but I always round up because I’m a nice guy. ;-)

[Steve Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Rickards, a former NTSB investigator, reviews data from an old satellite. The data was first thought to be a mistake but Joe and others come to believe it's real and set out to unravel the mystery. Strange energy readings and unusual occurrences are found around a glass spire in Bolivia. Anthropologist Angela Reed and retired NASA scientist Leonard Townsend give their views on the data and agree to accompany Joe to the site of the spire. All have unexplained visions related to their pasts. The glass from the spire matches the glass found in the glass desert on the other side of the world in Egypt near the pyramids. Saad, a reclusive billionaire, owns the glass desert and access is restricted by the Egyptian government, whom he has bribed. Joe and his team suspect that energy flows from the spire in Bolivia through the earth to the glass desert in Egypt. Saad owns several orphanages in remote locations all over the globe. He brings groups of children to his mansion. Experiments are conducted on the children at night in the glass desert when strange lights appear. Joe and his team set out to unravel the mysterious evils of the glass desert and prove Saad guilty of his evil deeds. The plot is intriguing as the author lets his imagination run wild about quantum physics and possibilities associated with quantum entanglement. The author confuses suspense with the slow release of information, however. The reader is left in the dark far too long, as the characters go on and on about knowledge they have but the reader does not. Patience wears thin as the pieces of the puzzle come together very slowly.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book in the Monument series?, trilogy? and it read very much like the first book. guess you could call it a sci-fi mystery however, the science is a bit vague and serves mostly as a vehicle for the mystery.

In the first book, "The Last Monument", a pretty woman with "trust issues" learns that her grandfather was killed in a mysterious plane crash and she decides to solve the mystery surrounding his death. She co-opts a NTSB investigator with" issues" of his own to help her. Their quest leads them to South America where, after fighting off the Nazi bad guys, they find a mysterious "energy" that lets them see dead people from their past.

In this book, the pretty but slightly damaged lady convinces the now retired but still badass NTSB guy to go off on another quest to the mid-east in search of the other end of the mysterious energy. Of course there are bad guy trying to stop them, again. By the end of the book, the energy is found but still remains a mystery. There are so many loose ends that a third book is obviously in the works.

While the writing is not bad, it can only barely be classified as science fiction. Mystery lovers may like this series but for me this was predictable and not very "sciencey".

[Shelly Lincoln · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second book in the series carries on where the first one left off. But while the story is another interesting blend of fact and fiction, the characters find themselves in difficult situations from which they miraculously emerge relatively unscathed. And while the story is fun and the book is not bad - there are scenes that are absolutely meaningless to the story. They are included almost as though the author had a story to tell whether it fit the plot of not. The finish leaves us with too many loose ends - I know some are needed to pull readers into the next book in the series (assuming there will be one), but if this is the end of the story then there is way too much left unsettled. The books in this series aren't bad - they are fun to read, fairly fast paced, and include some interesting characters. I listened to the audiobook - Scott Brick does his usual brilliant job; I just wish production values were better. I'm rounding up and giving this entry in the series four stars.

[Deborah Rusch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually listen to sci-fi thrillers,but all of Michael C. Grumley's books don't really fall into such a specific category. They all are part philosophical, part suspense/thriller, sci-fi, mystery, with a dash of romance. He does employ realism as this one uses a former NASA engineer to inject the notion of quantum physics. "Energy is not destroyed." With narrator Scott Brick, the story is riveting. The characters, some from previous novel MONUMENT, made me ponder the origin and Inter connectiveness of all living things on earth, intelligence, civilizations, and what might be the afterlife. After finishing it, I was left with questions about reality and how do our brains really work. If you seek books that challenge what you think you know, I highly recommend Michael C. Grumley's books.

[Ursula Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the amazing follow up to the Last Monument. Joe and Angela find themselves on a new mission after a cryptic message from an ally alerts Angela to a new mystery. Searching out a retired NASA scientist, they set out to learn about a possibly related location. Meanwhile a reporter is given special information and tasked with finding out what it means. They will be threatened by evil genius and converge on the unimaginable. Another fantastic, well written thriller with believable characters, twists, turns, science and sci-fi. I do have to agree with a fellow reviewer that the endings are rushed. I do want to learn more, as I've become invested in the characters. Mr. Grumley has become a favorite author and I will be diving into his other books. Scott Brick does his usual fantastic narration.

[CDWB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Grumley is like having an expensive bottle of wine; you savor the wine not gulp it. In his newest book you savor each sentence and paragraph. You would be doing yourself a disservice if you try to skim through this book. He's without a doubt one of the best authors I've read.
The plot is fascinating and really keeps your attention. The characters are believable and you find that you're rooting for them to win. This novel is the second book in the series so I would suggest reading the first book, Monument, and then this book, The Desert of Glass. I have read all of Michael Grumley's books, and find his works to be top notch. I would highly recommend this book and all his previous works. I gave it five stars because it is an exceptional read.