cover image The Hades Project

The Hades Project

Lynn Sholes, Joe Moore. Midnight Ink, $14.95 (421pp) ISBN 978-0-7387-0930-7

More action-laden suspense than mystery, the latest Cotten Stone novel fails to stand out from the growing ranks of religious-themed thrillers. Stone, the daughter of ""the only forgiven Fallen Angel,"" is a correspondent for a CNN-like television network, killing time until the next battle with the forces of Lucifer. An interview in the Kremlin is interrupted by a terror attack that kills her entire crew and leaves her and the Russian president scuttling through hidden passages that lead to an escape route via Lenin's tomb. Meanwhile, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Rizben Mace, secretly a Satanic priest, conspires to shatter civilization with a massive Internet attack code-named the Hades Project. While the outcome is never in doubt, the tension builds as Stone and her mortal and otherworldly allies race to avert catastrophe.