A sinister fire in a Copenhagen bookstore ignites a relentless hunt across four continents. Arson and murder reveal an insidious plot to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory. And Commander Gray Pierce dives headlong into a mystery that dates back to Nazi Germany…and to horrific experiments performed in a now-abandoned laboratory buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Poland.

A continent away, madness ravages a remote monastery high in Nepal, as Buddhist monks turn to cannibalism and torture. Lisa Cummings, a young American doctor investigating the atrocity, is suddenly a target of a brutal assassin working for clandestine forces that want the affair buried at any cost. Lisa's only ally is a hidden pilgrim, Painter Crowe — director of SIGMA Force, an elite command of American scientists and Special Forces operatives — who is already showing signs of the baffling malady that destroyed the minds of the monks.

Now it is up to Gray Pierce to save both Painter and Lisa — and a world in jeopardy — as SIGMA Force races to expose a century-old plot that threatens to destroy the current world order…and alter the destiny of humankind forever.

Combining the historic scope of The Da Vinci Code with the relentless thrills of today's best action novels, James Rollins's Black Order is a classic adventure — an ingenious and breathtaking tour de force that explodes with revelations…while offering a startling new view of our place in the grand scheme of existence.