Date first published	4 March 2010
ISBN Number	9 780 71815585 8
Page Count	403 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

On 7 December 1941, four brothers exploring a shaft on a small island off the coast of Washington state see excitement turn to disaster when one of them is killed in the shaft. The aftermath of the death is interrupted by the news of Pearl Harbour.

In the present Cabrillo, chasing the remnants of a crashed satellite in the Argentine jungle, makes a shocking discovery. His search to untangle the mystery leads him, first to that small island and its secret, and then much farther back, to an ancient Chinese expedition, and a curse that seems to have survived for over 500 years.

If Cabrillo's team is successful in its quest, the reward could be incalculable. If not... the only reward death.

Review

The series is now well established. The action is well paced and involves several flits across the globe. The author feels the franchise is strong enough that one of the regulars is killed off in the early part of the book. I won't say who as it will spoil the surprise.

The aggressor is surprisingly Argentina, who have teamed up with China, to secure major new oil supplies, and in a very James Bond way has built a secret base in Antarctica. However they do have a brutal military Colonel to deal with.

The link to Antarctica is the real motivator of the story, the current democratic government has been replaced by a military junta, and a brutal one at that. The Chinese connection is only tenuous, based on the stories of a great explorer who because of his failure was wiped from history by his Emperor.

The story starts out, like most of the books, with a government contract, but changes into a personal battle to seek revenge for the lost crew member. Oregon itself takes a back seat, with most of the action taking place on line. This is not a bad thing, as having the ship central to every story will become boring, and there are only so many options available to the author. The fact that the ship is also in mid refit after the last story adds some coherence to the plot line.

As to The Silent Sea, it remains something of an Enigma right until the end, and even then is destroyed. It is very unusual not to have the 'Title' feature more in the book. I'm not going to reveal what The Silent Sea is.

The final showdown with the Argentines, is somewhat of an anti-climax with no out right battle, merely a series of small fights with a spectacular crash to round it off. Cabrillo being stranded, is an attempt at a did he die/did he live, but the problem with this is the Oregon series is so centred around Cabrillo that it would be impossible to kill him off. It would have been better to have had one of the other crew members disappear.

I actually enjoyed the book, it's well put together, you know who the good guys are, and who the ones to avoid are. The fact that the crew are away from the ship has given the author more scope to expand the story. It's also nice to have a break from Muslim/environmental fundamentalists, who have featured to much in recent fiction.

The story also breaks away from the usual mode of purely being employed on a government job. Yes the story is sparked off by a government mission, but the major thread of the story is personal vendetta. The later minor job, is really no more than a reason to get the ship into the right area, and also have the right equipment available to carry out a search for the missing artifact.

The story more than earns it's four stars.

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