Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore, The Hades Project

Cotten Stone is peculiarly suited to fighting the forces of evil. By day a senior investigative correspondent for the Satellite News Network, Cotten also happens to be the mortal daughter of Furmiel, the only one of the Fallen Angels to have sought forgiveness for following Lucifer over to the dark side. In this third installment in Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore's series of Cotten Stone mysteries, Cotten and her off-limits love interest Father John Tyler, director of the Vatican's intelligence-gathering arm, uncover another fiendish plot hatched by the "old man" and his cronies. The "Hades Project" of the book's title, a marriage of modern technology and ancient religious artifact, threatens to unleash a hell on earth unless Cotten and John can do the Lord's work in time. The fate of the world is at stake, of course, but of more immediate concern is the welfare of two extraordinary children whom the bad guys need to have in their power if their diabolical scheme is to succeed.

The Hades Project, like its predecessors in the series, is a smoothly-written, nicely paced page-turner. The prose is transparent—which is to say that one doesn't notice it much, for good or ill, while reading, which is appropriate for the genre. The plot is not edge-of-your-seat gripping, but it definitely holds one's interest. The characters are likable but not as fleshed out as they might be. This time around, the story is furthered both by the introduction of a character, one of the children, who is likely to become a fixture in the series and by—if I'm not imagining it—a ratcheting up in intensity of the just-this-side-of-licit relationship between Cotten and Father John. It will be interesting to see what happens to these characters in subsequent installments.