"Exciting action thriller"

It's been two years since Dirk Pitt discovered that he had two grown fraternal twin children Dirk and Summer who he loves dearly. They, like their father, love the ocean and work for NUMA where they investigate toxic contamination that is destroying the fragile sea life in the Caribbean ecosystem. While taking samples underwater, they discover a man made palace that sunk to the bottom of the sea millennia ago. While NUMA scientists analyze the find, the twins head to an island off of Guadeloupe to see if a sailing expedition lies beneath the waters and if so is it from the same era that was found in the Caribbean.

Their father is saving a floating hotel from a force five hurricane before going to Nicaragua where the toxic contamination seems to be originating from. He finds a company owned by a mysterious four hundred pound man is working with the Chinese to construct underground tunnels that will connect one ocean to another. When he learns what the tunnels will be used for, he and the U.S. government try to stop them without creating an international incident.

Clive Cussler always writes an exciting action thriller that appeals to readers of both genders. Pitt is a modern day James Bond who hooks the readers into hoping that his heroic acts won't get him killed. The hero realizes with a family to care for he can't take so many chances and is prepared to change his lifestyle. In the last part of the book, the protagonist feels he will cross paths with his enemy once more implying hopefully that there will be more Dirk Pitt novels in the future.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 13, 2003

Summary

Long hailed as the grand master of adventure fiction, Clive Cussler has continued to astound with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his novels. Now, with a surprising twist, he gives us his most audacious work yet. In the final pages of Valhalla Rising, Dirk Pitt discovered, to his shock, that he had two grown children he had never known-twenty-three-year-old fraternal twins born to a woman he thought had died in an underwater earthquake. Both have inherited his love of the sea: the girl, Summer, is a marine biologist; the boy, himself named Dirk, is a marine engineer. And now they are about to help their father in the adventure of a lifetime. There is a brown tide infesting the ocean off the shore of Nicaragua. The twins are working in a NUMA(r) underwater enclosure, trying to determine its origin, when two startling things happen: Summer discovers an artifact, something strange and beautiful and ancient; and the worst storm in years boils up out of the sky, heading straight not only for them but also for a luxurious floating resort hotel square in its path. The peril for everybody concerned is incalculable, and, desperately, Pitt, Al Giordino, and the rest of the NUMA(r) crew rush to the rescue, but what they find in the storm's wake makes the furies of nature pale in comparison. For there is an all-too-human evil at work in that part of the world, and the brown tide is only a by-product of its plan. Soon, its work will be complete-and the world will be a very different place. Though if Summer's discovery is to be believed, the world is already a very different place... Filled with breathtaking action and suspense, Trojan Odyssey is Cussler at the height of his storytelling powers.