Date first published
ISBN Number	978-0718-17720-1
Page Count	520 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

1942, the cape of Good Hope. Returning from a secret mission to the Far East, an Italian Submarine is attacked by British aircraft and fatally damaged. On board were a mysterious scientist and his precious cargo, now believed to be lost along with the vessel...

Three quarters of a century later, while diving off the coast of Chile, NUMA Director Dirk pitt saves a crowded cruise ship from being rammed by a runaway freighter. On board the rogue ship he finds the strangely burned remains of a single crewman.

A continent away, in a secure naval dry dock, the President is shown the prototype attack submarine Sea Arrow, the top secret result of a black programme so advanced it will secure US dominance at sea for decades to come. But there's one problem. The scientist responsible for its design has disappeared, along with the final plans for the technology.

Pitt is assigned to investigate. But as the hunt leads him around the world, both his partner and the Sea Arrow's revolutionary propulsion system also go missing. And soon the chilling connections between apparently disparate events begin to reveal themselves.

Only Pitt can halt a shadowy conspiracy hell-bent on using America's latest military technology to realise their terrifying ambitions. And in a race against time that leads him from Washington to the impenetrable depths of the Panama jungle, Pitt realises that unless he succeeds in stopping them the world will become a very different place.

Review

The last few books in the Pitt series, have not been quite hitting the ground running, focusing on the fact the fact that Pitt and Giordino, are both getting on a bit, and also that Pitt is now a desk jockey running NUMA.

This story though corrects the situation quite admirably, with Pitt in particular getting stuck into the enemy with some gusto that has been missing from the last few stories. There is more action featuring Pitt and Giordino, rather than his two rather plain children.

The story also has a decent enemy, in the form of Pablo, who is able to keep one step ahead, and is utterly ruthless in his support of his crooked boss Edward Bolcke. Pablo uses a team of thugs who at the end all end up without the payoff they were expecting. Unlike previous stories where we get a bit of a wishy washy ending with the bad guys going to prison, in this story both get there just deserts.

Unusually the pre story- does not have a direct bearing on the outcome of the main story, Bolcke has no knowledge of the submarine, and it apparently has nothing of interest to him. The pre story is only really needed to close a small gap in the storyline about the shortage of rare earth elements. This is not a significant change but does make a nice little diversion.

Probably the only sub story not really needed was the attack on Pitt's children, as they stumble upon one of Bolckes scams, however this is being slightly picky, with a story that is really bubbling with energy and verve, Pitt back to his best action. The story also has less political intrigue, less environmental preaching, this really does make a nice change.

Overall the story is a really good Pitt/Giordino story, with them both getting fully involved in the fights and scrapes, rather than leaving it all to Pitt's children, lets hope we see more of the duo out in the field rather than just directing the action in the future.

Why does the story not score higher, well parts of the story ring a bell, especially the potential leak from a subcontractor company, I seem to remember Giordino investigating a similar company in a previous story, either Shockwave or Floodtide.

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