Island 731

Island 731

Jeremy Robinson

Genre: Thriller, Science Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  The high adventure of James Rollins meets the gripping suspense of Matthew Reilly in Jeremy Robinson's explosive new thriller

Mark Hawkins, former park ranger and expert tracker, is out of his element, working on board the Magellan, a research vessel studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But his work is interrupted when, surrounded by thirty miles of refuse,  the ship and its high tech systems are plagued by a series of strange malfunctions and the crew is battered by a raging storm.

When the storm fades and the sun rises, the beaten crew awakens to find themselves anchored in the protective cove of a tropical island...and no one knows how they got there. Even worse, the ship has been sabotaged, two crewman are dead and a third is missing. Hawkins spots signs of the missing man on shore and leads a small team to bring him back. But they quickly discover evidence of a brutal history left behind by the Island’s former occupants: Unit 731, Japan’s ruthless World War II human experimentation program. Mass graves and military fortifications dot the island, along with a decades old laboratory housing the remains of hideous experiments.

As crew members start to disappear, Hawkins realizes that they are not alone. In fact, they were brought to this strange and horrible island. The crew is taken one-by-one and while Hawkins fights to save his friends, he learns the horrible truth: Island 731 was never decommissioned and the person taking his crewmates may not be a person at all—not anymore.

Review: I was drawn to this book because of the comparison to James Rollins and Matthew Reilly, authors whose books I usually enjoy reading.  This book, however, was a little over the top for me.  I got caught up in the drama of the search for the missing crew members, but once it turned into a human and animal experimentation science fiction story, I found it too unbelievable and disturbingly gory to enjoy.  The main character was both incredibly skilled and supremely lucky, and the non-stop action was too much to take.

Rating: 2 stars