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jpv0's review
3.0
The deliveryman smiled as he eyed the thick stack of currency. “I wonder if the Germans would pay this much to sink a ship and murder a general,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to be working for the Kaiser, now, would you?”
The minister firmly shook his head. “No, this is a theological matter. Had you been able to locate the document, this would not have been necessary."
Oh my. A 'theological matter'. This will go well.
“Forgive us our sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he heard the minister say solemnly. “These we take to the grave.”
The back side of a shovel appeared, followed by a clump of soggy dirt that fell and bounced off his chest. Another shovelful of dirt tumbled down, and then another.
His body was paralyzed and his voice frozen, but his mind still operated with reason. With crushing horror, he fully grasped that he was being buried alive.
Yup...
And that's just the prologue.
Deep down, Giordino knew there would be something more interesting than an outcropping of rocks at the bottom. He had too much history with Pitt to question his friend’s apparent sixth sense when it came to underwater mysteries.
It's kind of funny to hear it said out loud. He might as well say that it's because he's the protagonist. Heh.
Pitt crooked an arm around her waist and gave her a long kiss. “A tire problem on the plane delayed our departure. Have you been waiting long?”
“Less than an hour.” She crumpled her nose and licked her lips. “You taste salty.”
“Al and I found a shipwreck on the way to the airport.”
“I should have guessed,” she said, then gave him a scolding look. “I thought you told me flying and diving didn’t mix?”
“They don’t. But that puddle jumper I flew in on barely cleared a thousand feet, so I’m plenty safe.”
The sea may be Pitt's first love and mistress, but I do love seeing the relationship with Loren finally develop. She's a good character.
Also, they totally stole Cussler's care. Because of course they did.
All that being said, you may have noticed that I didn't really mention the plot at all... because there's really nothing to it beyond the blurb:
In A.D. 327, a Roman galley barely escapes a pirate attack with its extraordinary cargo. In 1916, a British warship mysteriously explodes in the middle of the North Sea. In the present day, a cluster of important mosques in Turkey and Egypt are wracked by explosions. Does anything tie them together?
That's about it. An interesting story. Doesn't feel as plausible as some, which is saying something. It's fine and at this point I'm going to finish these...
thebrownbookloft's review
2.0
Too many plot lines that skipped about too rapidly for my taste. I got to the point where I just didn't care what happened and quit reading about 100 pages from the end.
I do like adventure/suspense novels and I am a fan of the early Clive Cussler books. This one just didn't quite do it for me.
I do like adventure/suspense novels and I am a fan of the early Clive Cussler books. This one just didn't quite do it for me.
pussreboots's review against another edition
4.0
One star off for the usual problems: too long of a prolog and too much time spent from the antagonists' POV.
amdame1's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
A typical Clive Cussler novel - full of handsome men, beautiful women, evil villains, underwater discoveries, fast cars, and lots of explosives!
A typical Clive Cussler novel - full of handsome men, beautiful women, evil villains, underwater discoveries, fast cars, and lots of explosives!
donnaslair's review against another edition
2.0
I don't know why I do this to myself. I guess I get stuck in ruts and start to crave rut-busters. Every once in a while, I'll pick up a thriller just for something different, and I should know by now that I'm not a fan of Clive Cussler.
I've enjoyed Dan Brown's books, and the Jason Bourne series, but these are just a little too corny for my taste. The hero (or in this case heroes, as the book has several subplots on various continents) quips in the face of almost certain doom, and never seems to have a change of mood. The mood thing bothers me, as I feel like if thriller-y things happened to me, I would probably have moods: frightened, angry, relieved, and so on. But not the Pitt family! Wry amusement is their one-size-fits-all mood.
Yes, the Pitt family. The author apparently thought it would be a good idea to have two heroes named Dirk Pitt in the same book - father and son. And for equal opportunity, daughter Summer Pitt also has a role. This to me is one of the many things poking holes in the plausibility of the story. I mean, what are the odds that 3 members of the same family simultaneously and on different continents get embroiled in the same evil plot?
You really have to put your critical reasoning skills on the shelf in order to get through this without too many eye rolls, and some of it is flat our insulting. During one chase scene, the characters run (for no apparent reason) into an improbably located antique car show on a small rural island off the Turkish coast. Where they steal a car from a guy named Clive Cussler (for God's sake)! In case you haven't looked at the back of one of Mr Cussler's books, he is very keen for us to know that he likes antique cars. I'm sure authors write themselves, friends, family, into books all the time. But it takes a special kind of arrogance to do it so clumsily.
Oh, and I'll keep this vague in order to avoid spoilers, but even though I'm no archaeologist, I would venture to say that the potency of weapons left in the elements for 2000 years might be somewhat diminished. Just sayin'.
I've enjoyed Dan Brown's books, and the Jason Bourne series, but these are just a little too corny for my taste. The hero (or in this case heroes, as the book has several subplots on various continents) quips in the face of almost certain doom, and never seems to have a change of mood. The mood thing bothers me, as I feel like if thriller-y things happened to me, I would probably have moods: frightened, angry, relieved, and so on. But not the Pitt family! Wry amusement is their one-size-fits-all mood.
Yes, the Pitt family. The author apparently thought it would be a good idea to have two heroes named Dirk Pitt in the same book - father and son. And for equal opportunity, daughter Summer Pitt also has a role. This to me is one of the many things poking holes in the plausibility of the story. I mean, what are the odds that 3 members of the same family simultaneously and on different continents get embroiled in the same evil plot?
You really have to put your critical reasoning skills on the shelf in order to get through this without too many eye rolls, and some of it is flat our insulting. During one chase scene, the characters run (for no apparent reason) into an improbably located antique car show on a small rural island off the Turkish coast. Where they steal a car from a guy named Clive Cussler (for God's sake)! In case you haven't looked at the back of one of Mr Cussler's books, he is very keen for us to know that he likes antique cars. I'm sure authors write themselves, friends, family, into books all the time. But it takes a special kind of arrogance to do it so clumsily.
Oh, and I'll keep this vague in order to avoid spoilers, but even though I'm no archaeologist, I would venture to say that the potency of weapons left in the elements for 2000 years might be somewhat diminished. Just sayin'.
johnmarlowe's review against another edition
2.0
This was actually a 2.5 rating. Oh no, another Clive Cussler. I keep saying that this is the last. These books are not nearly as interesting as when they were Clive only, and were from his beginning as a writer of adventure/treasure stories. In this one, I suspect Clive is continuing to pass the torch to his son Dirk, who I bet wrote it. So, a Roman galley was carrying something incredibly historically significant, and was being chased by pirates in 400AD or so. Cut to the present where the Pitt family is doing various archeological things that eventually relate to the beginning of the book. Ho hum. How many escape from deaths can there be in a book? The Cusslers also make their main characters a little too superman-ish, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Don't get me wrong. I cut my reading teeth on the original Clive Cussler books and could not wait for the next one to come out. It's just that I've probably read too many of them now, and when you get down to it, they're all the same (ducking from Clive Cussler fans throwing pillows).
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