4 stars out of 5
Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler's legendary hero who's now heading up the National Underwater and Marine Agency, doesn't play much of a role in this one, but there's plenty of action nonetheless. In fact, it's a little too much for me; NUMA agents Kurt Austin and fellow agent and friend Joe Zavala are about as close to super-heroes as you can get. No capes, perhaps, but plenty of other gadgets and gizmos courtesy of the U.S. government (chameleon suits? Who knew??) to satisfy all the techies out there.
In the beginning, Austin is injured while trying to rescue folks (one a former love) from a yacht that's about to sink. But his injuries come with memory malfunctions, and he isn't sure exactly what he saw. Determined to get to the truth - and prove that his long-ago love really isn't dead - he teams up with his pal Zavala to investigate (with Pitt's permission). All this leads to the discovery of a ship that was thought to be lost nearly a century ago and the possible downfall of the United States itself that brings computer hacking to a whole new level.
Some of Cussler's work of late has been less than satisfying, but this one - co-written by Graham Brown - is, with the exception of the aforementioned almost unbelievable super-hero antics, perhaps - very well done. The story is a bit complex, but the authors do a great job of sorting it all out so it makes sense in the end.
Ghost Ship (The NUMA Files) by Clive Cussler (Putnam Adult, May 2014); 440 pp.
4-1/2 stars (out of 5)
After reading Cussler's disappointing Poiseidon's Arrow, co-written by his son Dirk Cussler last year - I gave it just 3 stars - I wasn't expecting this to be much better (read my review here). That book was the 22nd "starring" Dirk Pitt, who since his introduction in 1965 has "graduated to head up the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Pitt makes an occasional appearance in that capacity in Zero Hour, but this one (Book 9 of The Numa Files) follows friends Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala and the rest of the Numa team as they try to stop a mad scientist who's bent on destroying the world as they know it.
The focus, if you will, is on "zero point energy," which is a theoretical state of energy that well-known scientists like Nikola Tesla reportedly espoused but for which his designs mysteriously disappeared before they could be tested. If tapped, it could be used as an energy source for the betterment of the world; but misused, the consequences could be dire. Here, the Numa team learns that a discredited and paranoid scientist has mastered the technology and, together with his son, plans to unleash it by targeting a fault line that runs through the middle of Australia and splitting the continent right down the middle.
As the team searches to find and shut down the villain before that happens at "Zero Hour," the chase moves along nicely, making this book hard to put down. On occasion, the boundaries of what the human body is capable of are tested a bit as the testosterone levels shoot up (literally and figuratively), but it never quite reaches the point of super-human that always bugs the heck out of me when I run across it in other books of this genre. All in all, a great job!
Zero Hour by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown (Putnam Adult, May 2013); 400 pp.
