One thing I want to make absolutely clear with this review is that if you're looking for the Sigma of the earlier books, the quest for forgotten treasures and past mysteries, you won't find that here. Not really, anyway. This book made it very clear to me that like Steve Berry's books, the plot focus here has officially shifted to a political strategies and power plays. This won't bother some, as many will be readers of military intrigue where such plots are common, but for those who are in this more for the Indiana Jones thrill will find themselves slightly left out. 
 That aside, there were elements in here I really enjoyed. I still loved the characters for the most part. Kowalski is still a hoot and remains one of my favorite characters. He's not an idiot, but his buffoonery provides a much needed lightness to the book because otherwise it'd be uninterrupted action and seriousness. (Others will probably see him as the Jar Jar of the Sigma team, though.) I also can't help but continue to like the women of the series, especially since they are usually some of the toughest characters. It's nice to have women that can hold their own for the most part. The guys? They're good, but Grey just continues to sail into Gary Stu territory. This doesn't mean that I dislike him, just that at times he's a little too perfect for my tastes. 
 Plot-wise, the book could have used about a good 50-100 pages shaved off. The idea of genetic engineering and DNA manipulation is an interesting one. It brings up a lot of questions as well as opens up the doors for future plot points in the series. I also rather liked the reveals in this book. Some of them you might have expected, some you might not have. The ending of this was particularly tight. This book took me a long time to get through because I just kept losing interest, but the ending makes me somewhat want to pick up the next book eventually. It's just that it takes so freaking long to get to where it wants to be that I couldn't help but get distracted by various different things. I know that it won't be like this for everyone and that the shift to power struggles did contribute to this, but I feel like this will be my last Sigma book for a while. 
 The bottom line is that this is good and if you've loved the series so far, you'll definitely want to pick this one up. If you're like me and have slowly started to pull away from the series, this book probably won't be the whiz-bang book that draws you back in.