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In 1281 a super typhoon destroys Kublai Khan's war fleet off Japan. The 'kami-kazi', the Divine Wind has saved Japan from the heathen invaders. The Mongol survivors finally land on an inhabited island and remain there for 13 years, at which time some of them resurrect an old catamaran and sail off. They are picked up by an arab merchant ship on its way to China. Kublai Khan dies and an altar is constructed in Beijing, but his body is spirited off to a secret location in Mongolia. 1937. The Japanese are invading China. The archeological dig in Shang-Tu (Xanadu) is winding down, preparing to ship out the most valuable of the finds by air and leave the rest with the Mongol foreman, who will convoy the balance of the items out of China. The plane crashes in the Gobi desert and disappears. The Mongol makes it home, with a valuable silk scroll showing the location of the great Khan's tomb. 2007. A geophysical survey on Lake Baikal is finding some interesting anomalies when tectonic activity under the lake causes a seiche, a seismic lake wave, to destroy the ship. Dirk Pitt and his team and a few of the scientists survive. This is only one of a series of strange geological happenings in the region. A couple of shallow earthquakes have already destroyed oil shipping ports in the Middle East. Now China must find a new source from which to buy oil. The survivors of the seiche, now aboard another ship, are kidnapped. A Russian scientist and the survey team are missing. Dirk and Al Giordino, with the occasional help of Rudy Gunn and Dirk's twin children, Dirk and Summer, must find the scientists before they are killed. Of course, all these threads come together in the end. And of course Dirk Sr. gets out of more tight scrapes in a matter of days than any other person would in a lifetime. And of course we are thrilled at his adventures, but this, the 19th Dirk Pitt novel, is not as breathtaking as some of the earlier books. This is a must-read for diehard Cussler fans but not a good starting place for those who have been on a mountain on the moon and have never heard of Dirk Pitt before now.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, December 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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