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Summary
Summary
From the classic novel Raise the Titanic! to Flood Tide, Clive Cussler and his fictional alter ego Dirk Pitt® have earned legions of fans worldwide. Now, the author of numerous consecutive bestsellers unleashes a hero for the next millennium in an electrifying new series of unrelenting action and edge-of-your-seat thrills.
On the bottom of the icy sea off Nantucket lies the battered remains of the Italian luxury liner, Andrea Doria. But few know that within its bowels rests a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity -- a treasure that now holds the key to a puzzle that is costing people their lives.
For Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) exploration team, the killing begins when he makes a daring rescue of a beautiful marine archaeologist. The target of a powerful Texas industrialist named Halcon, Nina Kirov was attacked off the coast of Morocco after her discovery of a carved stone head that may prove Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America. Soon Kurt and Nina embark on a deadly mission to uncover Halcon's masterful plan -- an insidious scheme that would have him carve out a new nation from the southwest United States and Mexico, and ride to power on a wave of death and destruction.
With Austin's elite NUMA crew attacking the murderous conspiracy from different sides, an extraordinary truth emerges: that Columbus may have made a fifth, unknown voyage to America in search of a magnificent treasure. And that the silent, steel hull of the Andrea Doria not only holds the answer to what the explorer may have found -- but the fate of the United States itself.
Author Notes
Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois on July 15, 1931. He attended Pasadena City College for two years before enlisting in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. After his discharge from the military, he worked first as a copywriter and later as a creative director for two of the nation's most successful advertising agencies. At that time, he wrote and produced radio and television commercials that won numerous international awards, including one at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
He began writing in 1965 and published his first novel featuring Dirk Pitt in 1973. His first non-fiction work, The Sea Hunters, was published in 1996. He has written over 50 books including the Dirk Pitt series, the NUMA Files series, Oregon Files series, Isaac Bell series, and the Fargo Adventure series.
He is the Chairman of NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency), a non-profit group which he founded. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered over 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites.
Clive Cussler died on February 24, 2020 at the age of 88. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
After more than a quarter century of chronicling the aquatic adventures of action hero Dirt Pitt, Cussler (Flood Tide; Shock Wave) has finally decided to cast his line in somewhat different waters. Co-written by veteran mystery author Paul Kemprecos (Bluefin Blues; The Mayflower Murder), this novel still features the sturdy men and women of the National Underwater Marine Agency, plenty of hair-raising derring-do and a convivial cast of characters engaged in an outlandishly hatched thrill ride. The stars of this show are NUMA divers Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala, two young bucks without the seasoning and panache of Pitt but worthy successors, nonetheless. They are trying to find out why top archeologists are being killed, some of them butchered, at dig sites. The archeologists have apparently stumbled across artifacts proving, contrary to established historical thought, that Christopher Columbus wasn't the first Old World explorer to set foot in the New World. The killings can be traced to a mysterious organization in Texas called Time Quest, whose stated mission is to provide volunteers for digs. Its real intention, however, is much darker: to prevent anyone from learning that Spain was not the first on the scene in the New World and that the culture it claimed to discover had, in fact, been imported from other corners of the globe. Ultimately, Time Quest's leader, the evil Francisco Halcon, wants to foment revolution in the Western U.S. and reclaim it as Latin-American territory. The showdown between Halcon and NUMA's forces plays out in typical Cussler furyÄfirst on the decks of the sunken passenger liner Andrea Doria in the waters off Nantucket and again in an underwater Mayan crypt in Guatemala. It's all great fun, if not a little top-heavy at times from flabby subplots and excessive detail on arcane historical facts and the machinery of deep-sea exploration. As for Pitt, his fans will be relieved to know that he and longtime sidekick Al Giordino make a brief appearance to wish Austin and Zavala luck, then depart for a mission in Antarctica, no doubt to return with tales of peril and glory. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Cussler abandons his trademark hero, Dirk Pitt (Flood Tide, 1997, etc.), for Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala of NUMA (the National Underwater and Marine Agency), both of whom are gifted at derring-do and outwitting bad guys. Cussler has also taken on a co-author, which may account for a fresh poetic reach and smoothness to many of the pages here. Not that Cussler needs any help in postulating the outrageous, in this instance the discovery of the mummified remains of a certain Italian explorer whose initial's are C.C. (think very big) in an underwater Mayan temple in the Yucatan. A ton of outlandish but solemnly straight-faced plotting leads to this stupefying event. The Spanish Brotherhood of the Sword, for example, which supposedly disbanded 300 years ago, is still alive and well and responsible for the story's marvelous opening set-piece, the ramming and sinking of the Andrea Doria back in 1956. Readers who remember that Cussler wrote Raise the Titanic! (1976) will not be surprised by an underwater expedition to the Andrea Doria, but what does surprise is the armored car robbery/murder that takes place in the hold as the ship sinks. What fantastic object does the armored car contain that brings about the great Italian liner's destruction and large loss of life? Mayan archaeology with underwater battles in silty darkness, plus a busty archaeologist: in other words, the mixture as before, and simply terrific fun.
Booklist Review
It won't surprise those who remember Cussler's Raise the Titanic! (1976) that he now uses the 1956 sinking of the Andrea Doria as the springboard for another thriller involving the National Underwater and Maritime Agency. According to Cussler, the Andrea Doria sinking was deliberate, but that secret begins unraveling two generations later, when archaeologist Nina Kirov, fleeing a "terrorist" attack on her dig, is rescued by a NUMA vessel. Aboard are Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala, NUMA field operatives equally deft with underwater hardware and the ladies. The pair's first job is standing off the "terrorists" pursuing Kirov. Plots--not to mention counterplots--rapidly thicken as NUMA squares off against Halcon, who is clearly a descendant of Fu Manchu despite his Latino characterization. Halcon seeks an immense treasure, brought by fleeing Carthaginians to the Mayan empire, to finance an independent Latino nation in the U.S. Southwest. Before Halcon is defeated, Cussler dispenses, with new collaborator Kemprecos' aid, the fast action, larger-than-life characters, less-than-graceful prose, credulity-stretching scenarios, and high-saltwater content that are his trademarks. A superlative subplot relays the adventures of archaeologist Gamay Trout and her companion, the Mayan Dr. Chi, as they try to escape outlaws, Halcon's minions, and the natural hazards of the Yucatan Peninsula. Likely to prove eminently satisfactory to Cussler fans. --Roland Green