Date first published	2000
ISBN Number	0 684 86616 1
Page Count	378 p/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

Water, the essence of life. The world is covered in it yet a minute percentage of it is actually able to be used in it's raw state.

To Gogstad, water is just another commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. Can't afford water? Then die.

To NUMA veterans Austin and Zavala this means nothing, however during a power boat race, they come across a dead pod of whales. Intrigued by the sad sight Austin starts to look into the deaths. It is only as he starts following a trail, and the trail starts mysteriously dying does he realise that he has stepped into something far uglier than the simple death of a group of whales. Can Austin work it out before he also joins the list of casualties?

Meanwhile deep in the depth of the Amazon forest Paul and Gamay Trout have come across a White Goddess. amazed at the lifestyle of the tribe, they agree to help the Goddess escape, and release upon the world a way to desalinate water at minimal cost.

Gogstad, meanwhile have been trying to develop a similar way to desalinate water, but have never been able to perfect the process, until the arrival of the White Goddess. Now Gogstad can control the world.

Review

The book harks back to the earlier Pitt novels, in that the action is hard and fast, and the (in this case) four heros are in the thick of it. I am still not sure about Austin and Zavala, but the adventures of the Trouts are intriguing. I have a picture of them being, a bit like Miss Marple, only throwing off her maidenly ways as they pull out semi automatics to blow the bad guys away!

There is very little to criticise about this adventure. You have the two threads that gradually pull together, but in the meantime you are left wondering where it will lead. You do realise fairly early on the Gogstad were behind the aircraft crash.

The water desalination process is a bit over the top, as is a lot of the non ocean based science, but it does stay in the realms of reality. All the other technology used is around apart from Max the supercomputer.

The story as with all Cussler novels is a reasonably straight forward yarn with little political posturing as with some American authors, and the Environmental aspects are played down, although they are there in the background. It does raise an interesting issue. Should water be controlled by companies, out for profit? In my opinion no. water is so fundamental it should be available to everyone.

The main player Brynhild Sigurd, could have been far more interesting, but as with many characters in Cusslers universe they are not well fleshed out. Sigurd has decided to control the world because she was bullied at school. It's a start I suppose. The Kradzik, now were interesting, and enjoyed killing for killings sake. I thought when Gamay was taken to them that it was for rape then murder, but the pleasure for them was the sport of killing. It is always fun to see the hardened killer brought to a sticky end.

A good read, with some interesting new characters developing.

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