The Emperor's Revenge

May 2, 2016
A high level of tolerance for implausibility is required to enjoy bestseller Cussler's high-octane 11th Oregon Files adventure (after 2015's Piranha), the second in the series to be coauthored by Morrison. Juan Cabrillo runs the Corporation, an off-the-books U.S. government intelligence operation, based on the Oregon, a super-ship fitted with "revolutionary new magnetohydrodynamic engines" and an array of powerful weapons. The Oregon also features the amenities of a luxury liner, including an Olympic-sized swimming pool, chefs "trained at the Cordon Bleu," and a Navy-trained chief medical officer whose "lab coat remained spotless as it draped over her voluptuous curves." The Corporation is facing an unprecedented challenge after someone who hacked into a Monaco bank's systems threatens to plunge the European economy into chaos. The scheme is somehow connected with the search for "Napoleon's lost Russian treasure using a diary the emperor left behind after he was supposedly kidnapped from exile without anyone realizing it"; even the characters acknowledge that the premise is bizarre. The authors keep things moving at a fast pace, but there's nothing in this outing that genre fans haven't seen before. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency.

May 15, 2016
Cussler (Piranha, 2015, etc.) charges co-author Morrison with chronicling another rollicking Juan Cabrillo adventure. Disgruntled Ukrainian navy captain Sergey Golov has pirated Achilles, the private yacht of Russian mega-billionaire Maxim Antonovich. Golov's accomplice is his daughter, Ivana, a computer whiz. She's also the infamous hacker ShadowFoe, which means she has the keyboard savvy to warp 30 billion euros into secret foreign accounts and then stall pursuit by uploading a virus to computers controlling the European electric power grid. Ivana's virus is unbreakable. It's based on math formulas theorized by 19th-century genius Alexei Polichev, whose papers were purloined during Napoleon's Russian campaign. Daddy Golov will find and destroy Polichev's notes while Ivana infects the network. First, she steals a few million from Credit Condamine. Bad choice. That's the Oregon crew's bank. Newbies get a precis on Cabrillo and his privatized CIA-like company and its floating headquarters, Oregon, a cutting-edge warship disguised as a tramp steamer. However, Achilles has been equipped with a railgun and a laser defense weapon by the same Vladivostok shipyard. Sea battles, anyone? Wait! Cabrillo must first foil the Saharan Islamic Caliphate's nuclear ambitions. Then it's nefarious deeds and heroic derring-do from the Monaco Grand Prix to Malta, Germany, Lithuania, Holland, and the Baltic. The exotic weapons-driven, more-threads-than-a-sweater narrative explodes with action, dead bodies hither and yon, with Cabrillo making enough skin-of-the-teeth escapes that he'll need to visit his dentist. The cast is comprised of one-size-fits-all stalwart or malevolent characters, and the locations are anchored by spare descriptions of landmarks, but when there's "only ten days to prevent the world from suffering a disastrous financial meltdown," the Oregon's ready to rescue. The Cussler conglomerate holds the patent on the Don't analyze, turn the page! manly action adventure.

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