This 17th Dirk Pitt extravaganza finds Cussler (literally, as he makes a cameo at book's end) and his entourage of paint-by-number characters in fine fettle, foiling a dastardly plot by outlandish villains to launch a new ice age, and at the same time demonstrating that the Achaeans were not Greeks but Celts, and that Troy was a town in what's now England.
After a prelude set during the Trojan War, the novel proper starts with a roar, as a monstrous hurricane sweeps toward the Caribbean, endangering not only Pitt's twin son and daughter, engaged in undersea exploration, but also the Ocean Wanderer, a luxury floating hotel owned by a mysterious billionaire known as Specter. In a manly manner, Pitt and his longtime sidekick, Al Giordino, both of NUMA (the National Underwater and Marine Agency), save the hotel and Pitt's grown kids, but not before those kids discover a trove of underwater relics that indicate that the Celts, aka Achaeans, reached the New World millennia ago. And the Celts are still here, in the guise of a female Druidic cult linked to Specter and aiming for world domination by altering ocean currents via a vast underground mechanism in Nicaragua, which will plunge the earth into cold, then selling a new type of cheap fuel cell to supply needed heat. The action never flags, the heroics never halt and the bodies pile up as Pitt and Co. take on the villains; some big changes in Pitt's personal life close the book. --
A good adventure story although a little far fetched since it is set in 2006. I like the suave Pitt, but much of this book features his children, Dirk & Summer. Pitt has aged over the years, so maybe this will be the last Clive Cussler Pitt & Giordino book.
Yet another in the series of "Dirk Pitt saves the world", a time-worn, but nonetheless enjoyable read from a master of his craft. Not by any means Faulkner or Hemingway, but entertaining and page-turning fiction. A bit of a continuation of the previous "Valhalla Rising", but stands on its own, as well.