April 28, 2014
Bestseller Cussler’s electrifying 12th NUMA Files adventure (after 2013’s Zero Hour, also coauthored by Brown) takes Kurt Austin, director of special projects at the National Underwater Marine Agency, across the globe in search of Sienna Westgate, the long-lost love of his life, and the world’s preeminent expert in cybersecurity. Pronounced dead after her family’s yacht sunk in the Indian Ocean, a revived Sienna may have surfaced in the shadows of the Iranian black market. Notorious smuggler Rene Acosta is eager to trade her talents to any number of foreign governments for a huge sum, but the nefarious Brèvard clan is also vying for control over the brilliant Sienna. Trusty colleague Joe Zavala and Dirk Pitt, NUMA’s director, provide assistance as Kurt uses a range of advanced technology in the hunt for the woman whose disappearance haunts him day and night. Cussler delivers all the usual twists and turns on the way to the explosive climax. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency.
May 15, 2014
Kurt Austin and his National Underwater Marine Agency team save the world yet again, this time from a criminal family that's been hijacking the innocent and taking hostages for four generations.Commandeered off the coast of South Africa by Gavin Brevard and a gang of criminals who'd booked passage with counterfeit currency, the SS Waratah vanished without a trace in 1909. A century later, the Brevard family is still at it. Brothers Sebastian, Egan and Laurent, along with their kid sister, Calista, have kidnapped Sienna Westgate and her two children and intend to sell her services to the highest bidder-assuming they can recover her from Rene Acosta, their double-crossing former client. The Brevards' racket is much more high-end than sexual slavery, for Sienna, architect of the legendary Phalanx security software, is one of the most sought-after computer experts in the world. Nothing could stop their nefarious scheme save for the fact that Sienna is the one-time fiancee of Kurt Austin, who lost her to Internet billionaire Brian Westgate. Sienna and her kids were supposedly lost at sea when Westgate's yacht, Ethernet, sank, but mounting evidence shows that she's no more dead than the SS Waratah, which never sank at all. Kurt's initial encounter with fire-breathing Calista Brevard as they battle over Sienna, who's being held on Acosta's yacht, ends inconclusively. So Acosta packs Sienna off to Korean street criminal-turned-industrialist Than Rang, head of the DaeShan Group, and the action-there's plenty of action-shifts from the African coast to the Korean peninsula, where Kurt, his buddy Joe Zavala and their NUMA stalwarts dodge everything the Brevards can throw at them as they struggle to free Sienna before the world's computer systems all go kablooey.Once more, Cussler and Brown (Zero Hour, 2013, etc.) paint with such broad strokes that Kurt's adventures aren't so much written as whitewashed.
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