Dirk Pitt—“oceanography’s answer to Indiana Jones”*—responds to a Mayday signal from a deserted ship and gets drawn towards a deadly Cold War secret in this thriller in Clive Cussler’s #1 New York Times-bestselling series.
Dirk Pitt, the director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, is on the Black Sea, helping to locate a lost Ottoman shipwreck, when he responds to an urgent Mayday—“Under attack!”—from a nearby freighter. But when he and his colleague Al Giordino arrive, there is nobody there. Just dead bodies and a smell of sulfur in the air. As Pitt and Giordino explore, a blast from the stern scuttles the ship swiftly, almost taking them with it.
The more the two of them search for the secret of the death ship, the deeper they descend into an extraordinary series of discoveries. A desperate attempt in 1917 to preserve the wealth and power of the Romanov Empire. A Cold War bomber lost with a deadly cargo. A brilliant developer of advanced drone technology on an unknown mission. Modern-day nuclear smugglers, determined Ukrainian rebels, a beautiful anti-terrorism agent from Europol—all will combine to present Pitt with the most dangerous challenge of his career.
And not only Pitt. His two children, marine engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, are exploring a mysterious shipwreck of their own, when they are catapulted into his orbit. The three of them are used to perilous situations—but this time, they may have found their match.
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"The pages whip by as the characters, at least the good guys, survive one deadly encounter after another, and the bad guys get their comeuppances. Readers will anxiously await Dirk’s next adventure."
— Publishers Weekly
“Dirk Pitt is oceanography’s answer to Indiana Jones. Exotic locations, ruthless villains, and many narrow escapes and derring-do. Cussler’s fans come for swashbuckling [and] he delivers.”
— Associated Press, praise for the series“Another super Cussler fun read. Pitt and company are the stuff of heroic dreams.”
— Kirkus Reviews, praise for the seriesSketch out some exotic, ephemeral settings, make every villain as nasty as possible, and it's another of Cussler's cinematic-style entertainments spinning out at hold-on-to-your-hat speed.
— Kirkus ReviewsExotic locations, ruthless villains, and many narrow escapes and derring-do. Cussler’s fans come for swashbuckling [and] he delivers.
— *Associated PressAnother super Cussler fun read. Pitt and company are the stuff of heroic dreams.
— Kirkus ReviewsTeems with violence, derring-do, and perilous situations. The action runs non-stop and wham-bam, with the authors finding clever ways to spare their good guys from bad ends.
— St. Louis Post-DispatchClive Cussler (1931–2020) was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books in several bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, Cussler and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much publicity.
Dirk Cussler worked for many years in the financial arena and now devotes himself full time to writing. He is the coauthor of Black Wind, Treasure of Khan, Arctic Drift, Crescent Dawn, and Poseidon’s Arrow. For the past several years, he has been an active participant and partner in his father’s NUMA expeditions and has served as president of the NUMA advisory board of trustees. He lives in Arizona.
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.