Date first published	5 November 2008
ISBN Number	978 0 718 15459 2
Page Count	515 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

Dirk Pitt senior is back in the field !

The USA is facing a major fuel crisis, along with the threat from global warming, and look North to solve their energy needs. However a crooked environmentalist and a corrupt Canadian Prime Minister are hell bent on shutting the Americans out.

Dirk's children are in the area carrying out water tests for NUMA when they come across a boat heading for rocks. Dirk (jnr) rescues the boat to find it manned by dead men, with a cryptic message scrawled across the bulkhead. Dirk and Summer aided by the dead skippers brother investigate and become intrigued by a plant to handle liquid CO2.

Meanwhile as the crisis deepens Dirk is drawn into the conflict whilst searching for a mineral which can solve the worlds global warning. Can the Pitt family find the mineral and stop America from going to war with it's Canadian neighbours?

Review

There are elements of the book that I like, and elements which I think weaken the story, and spoils it to some extent. So lets get the bad points out of the way, and then look at the good points.

Having Pitt, Pitt junior, Summer and Giordino all active makes the book slightly to cluttered, and to some extent splits the book up too much. You tend to find that you spend a large section of the book with one group, and just as the story gets going switch back to the other group, where the action hasn't really got going.

There is quite a lot of preaching about global warming, but thankfully carbon footprint doesn't get mentioned. I know that Cussler is a strong believer in man made global warming, but I am not convinced, and believe a lot of the hysteria is being generated due to faulty computer models.

Pitt and Giordino don't really get into some serious action, they don't have a major physical fight, although they have a gun fight, but it's not quite the same.

Finally, the ending is a bit tame, and Pitt does not get to deal with Mitchell Goyette, it is left to a supporting character. The last few chapters, are somewhat flimsy, with a general description of the winding up of Goyette's interests.

So having got the bad bits out of the way what was good about the book?

The basic idea was quite novel, using the photosynthesis principles of plants to get rid of CO2 in the air, and was not quite as far fetched as the displacement apparatus for transporting fuels.

The central character Goyette, is intriguing. At first it looks to be a novel about the environment, yet it turns out to be a story of one mans need for money and power. He also has a suitably able henchman, who will quite willingly kill at the drop of a hat. It has been quite a while since we have had a good henchman in a Cussler novel, although he still does not meet the ultimate killer in the guise of Foss Gly.

All the characters you would expect to meet in a Pitt novel appear to a greater or lesser extent, (Sanddecker, Gunn, Perlmutter Yaeger, and Loren).

There are some really good moments, such as when the 'ghost ship' materialises out of nowhere to run the scientific expedition into the arctic waters, the aborted rescue mission and the infiltration of the sequestration plant.

Pitt and Giordino are of course a lot older, and with Pitt married, there is less scope for Pitt to dally with the damsel in distress - I also think the children put a dampener on this aspect. I still think it would be better to move back to Pitts earlier days, and have him back in the thick of the action with Al, and with Sanddecker behind the desk of NUMA where he belongs.

Like Kurt Austin, Summer and Dirk (jnr) are just not so interesting, and still don't get me wanting them to come out on top, in the way that Dirk and Al do, perhaps if I had just started reading the franchise, I would have different ideas. I also think that it is difficult for Dirk and Summer to get into (and out of) some of the scrapes that Dirk and Al found themselves in - remember the fight in Mayday - where it took the two of them to take down Darios?

Also having 4 good guys waters down the story. Yes you can cover twice as much ground, but it does mean that the reader can become tired, if two of the partners are not as interesting. I find a similar problem with the NUMA files, where the Trouts, are more interesting than Kurt Austin the lead character.

Overall the book showed a stronger 'bad guy element' than in previous stories, which can only be good, it wasn't so impersonal (when you fight a corporation) and you were absolutely sure that Goyette was not on the side of angels. His death was suitably deserved, although very complicated to set up.

As I said before the ending was slightly weaker than I would have liked, but at the end of the day it did sweep up all of the threads.

Whilst I have only given the book a three, which is down on the Treasure of Khan, some elements are stronger, just let down by the ending. It shows that there is life in the franchise yet.

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