Flood Tide - Softcover

Cussler, Clive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743449770 ISBN 13: 9780743449779

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

A fabulously wealthy Chinese businessman is making a fortune smuggling Chinese immigrants. Dirk Pitt becomes suspicious and begins to track him. The trail leads him from Washington to Louisiana where the villain is building a huge shipping port - apparently in the middle of nowhere. Pitt's continuing investigation reveals that his instincts were right - he is on the tail of a master villain and not only lives are at stake. Dirk Pitt must stop him at all costs.

About this title

Review:

From the moment you begin Clive Cussler's latest undersea thriller, you know that you're in the hands of a old pro; thus any lingering crotchetiness over the book's stereotypical villains is offset by deft plotting and taut action. Flood Tide details the exploits of Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, whom Cussler fans already know and love. Judging by this book, "Special Projects" seems to be a euphemism for blowing stuff up. Pitt's worthy adversary is Qin Shang, a Chinese shipping tycoon who is definitely from the Fu Manchu school of management. As part of a nefarious plot to bring the United States to its knees with a flood of illegal immigrants, Qin Shang operates a secluded gulag in rural Washington, which the vacationing (ha!) Pitt stumbles upon. A lot of entertaining mayhem ensues, both on the water and under it. Flood Tide's enthusiastic xenophobia can stick in the throat, and may get in the way for some. But that flaw aside, it delivers the speed and shocks necessary.

From the Publisher:

Following the runaway success of his first nonfiction book, The Sea Hunters, Clive Cussler returns with his legendary fictional hero Dirk Pitt® -- in a masterfully crafted tale of villainy on the high seas and the Mississippi River that can only enhance his status as the grand master of adventure fiction.

The coin of the realm for the wealthy, insatiably greedy Chinese smuggler who is Dirk Pitt's adversary in Flood Tide is human lives: much of his vast fortune has been made smuggling Chinese immigrants into countries around the globe, including the United States.

Tracking the smuggler's nefarious activities leads Pitt from Washington State to Louisiana, where his quarry is mysteriously constructing a huge shipping port in the middle of nowhere. Why has he chosen this unlikely location?

The trail then leads to the race to find the site of the mysterious sinking of the ship that Chiang Kai-shek filled with treasure when he fled China in 1949, including the legendary boxes containing the bones of Peking Man that had vanished at the beginning of World War I. As Pitt prepares for a final dramatic showdown, he is faced with the most formidable foe he has ever encountered.

With a dozen consecutive New York Times bestsellers and over 70 million copies of his books in print, Clive Cussler is one of America's most popular novelists. His latest book is enthralling, intricately plotted, and supremely suspenseful.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743449770
• ISBN 13: 9780743449779
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512