Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The sixth Kurt Austin novel from the N.U.M.A files isn't a good as the previous primarily because it gets bogged down in character overload. It possesses all the usual Cussler and Kemprecos thriller punch as Kurt slices his way through the mystery (more with an enquiring mind than a ready fist) to save the world from the latest megalomaniacal scheme to gain power and wealth. The problem this time is it never really settles on a one or two characters around whom the plot revolves, choosing to divert equal page time between Kurt, Gamay & Trout, Karla Janos, Karl Schroeder, the various antics of the bad guys in the personages of Tris Margrave, Doyle, Spider Barrett (who is later reformed) and the corporate tyrant, Gant. The science also gets a lot more page time than normal for a Cussler novel.
None of this is bad, per se, but it'll take Austin a couple of novels to settle in if future novels intend to bulk up on content whilst retaining the light-hearted panache that accompanies the adventures.
So, Austin's sixth adventure has us following the flight of the brilliant electro-magnetic scientist, Lazlo Kovacs, as he flees a crumbling Third Reich under the guiding hand of Karl Schneider. Spending the next fifty years becoming rich in the US and having Karl godfather his granddaughter, Karla, we move to present day with the sinking of the Southern Belle in waves greater than 90ft. This, of course, immediately demolishes all current tidal theories and launches Kurt (after escaping being inexplicably attacked by an Orca pod) into a mystery that involves the late Kovacs work on electromagnetism, a couple of brilliant young software geniuses whose wayward youthful desire to be anti-establishment leads them down the dark path of the elitist and corporate overlord, Gant, and the obvious beautiful young lady in the guise of Karla who happens to be a leading authority on woolly mammoths.
So, we find ourselves underwater on the Southern Belle looking at enormous spark plugs, single-handedly saving Trout and Gamay in vast Atlantic whirlpools, avoiding capture in Bond-esque style on a remote ski-run in the Rockies, in shootouts with mercenaries in the Siberian hinterland, discovering lost civilisations that ran a dwarf woolly mammoth rearing farm, poking heads into the lion's den and convincing the US powers-that-be that the world is about to suffer an global cataclysm all before saving the world from an aeroplane with a formula worked out from a nursery rhyme.
As usual, Austin has Joe Zavala along for the ride, Trout & Gamay provide their usual diversionary cameos, and Dirk Pitt makes a brief appearance in the usual Cussler role, lending his antique replica car to Kurt for the obligatory car chase. It's all nonsense, but it's a delightful formula that has earned Cussler legions of fans and money. You get the sense that the formula is trying to expand and has failed to do so in this latest effort. There is a lot of additional verbiage that is not necessary in a Cussler novel and whilst it should be lauded, the Pitt/Austin novels are, perhaps, one mould that shouldn't be broken.
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