Map of bones

Map of Bones is a thriller by the American writer James Rollins, published in 2004 and part of his series about the Sigma Force.

The raid on the cathedral is careful and deliberate, and the men who carry it out are after one object rather than the church's gold, which tells the investigators that money is not the motive. The team sent to follow them includes soldiers with scientific training and two specialists, and the trail runs through the history of the relics, the alchemical tradition that grew up around them and a plan to use what they represent. Rollins writes the book as an adventure with a puzzle at the centre: the history is researched, the action is staged in real places, and the villains have a scheme that needs both a laboratory and a faith.

It was the second of the Sigma novels, and it was one of the books that established the series and its habit of building a thriller around a piece of real history, a relic, an archive or a scientific idea.