Fast Ice

September 24, 2018
Kurt Austin and the other members of the National Underwater Marine Agency must once again save the world in bestseller Cussler’s solid 16th NUMA Files novel (after The Rising Sea, also with Brown). In the present, Tessa Franco, a “wealthy and brilliant designer who’d been called a modern-day Howard Hughes,” and Arat Buran, a “shadowy but important player in the oil business,” rediscover a deadly bacteria that feeds on oil and forms a sludge that blocks oil wells, originally found by a secret joint Franco-Israeli research project on a Mediterranean island in 1968. Franco and Buran plan to infect most of the globe’s oil wells with the organisms, which will cause oil prices to soar, whereupon Buran will corner the oil market with his own uninfected wells, and Franco will supply the planet’s energy needs with a new alternative energy device she has invented. Only Austin and company can stop their nefarious plot. Cussler fans know who will win in the end, but it’s always fun to watch the NUMA guys and gals implementing their clever plans. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency.

November 1, 2018
The latest maritime thriller in the NUMA series starring Kurt Austin (The Rising Sea, 2018, etc.)In 1968, the French submarine Minerve sinks without a trace in the Mediterranean. In the present day, an oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing and badly injuring many workers. Enter Kurt Austin, head of Special Projects at the National Underwater Marine Agency. Kurt leads a team that assists in marine emergencies, so they respond to the Mayday call and quickly find a stream of underwater flame--escaping gas is burning in the water, down "as far as the eye could see." It's a fire that needs no oxygen, a phenomenon Kurt's team has never seen. NUMA calls the disaster clear-cut sabotage, and Kurt's assignment is to find the guilty party. Said party is Tessa Franco, CEO of Novum Industria, who is busily sabotaging oil production around the world. She wants to promote her new fuel cell to replace "this mad reliance on fossil fuels" and become even more stinking rich than she already is. She has "infected half the world's major oil fields" by pumping oil-eating bacteria into them, rendering them useless. "She is the oil crisis," Kurt tells the president. Kurt's and Tessa's teams race to locate the Minerve, which may have critical genetic research Israel commissioned half a century ago. There are great action scenes underwater and on the surface, where Tessa's seaplane, the Monarch, is almost as big as a 747. Rotten to the core, Tessa wants her lackeys to "get rid of Austin once and for all." Her odds look mighty good considering the firepower she brings to bear.Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there's a good series to continue.

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November 1, 2018
Kurt Austin and his NUMA team roar into action in this latest installment of the long-running NUMA Files series. Tasked by the president of the U.S. to find out what could have caused the devastating firestorms that demolished three oil rigs, Austin makes a startling discovery that leads him to an evil genius with plans to control the world's energy supply. It's fairly formulaic stuff, but that's no surprise; the NUMA files novels are pretty much identical structurally?only the details change. But give the authors full credit for making their evil genius a woman. This isn't a spoiler: Cussler and Brown drop this revelation quite early on. Female villains of the evil-genius type are few and far between in the high-concept-adventure subgenre, and it's refreshing to find one here. And the writing goes less by the numbers than in some of the recent NUMA Files books. Cussler's devoted readership will find this among the better entries in the series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 11, 2021
In bestseller Cussler’s gripping 18th NUMA Files novel (after 2020’s Journey of the Pharaohs, also with Brown), climate expert Cora Emmerson, while doing research in Berlin, comes across references to a 1939 German expedition to Antarctica that discovered a lake heated by geothermal energy containing a strange green algae that seemed to cause water to rapidly freeze. Cora goes to Antarctica, where she collects ice core samples containing the algae. She alerts the National Underwater and Marine Agency, for which she once worked, that she has made a find that has the power to “remake the world.” Weeks later, as Cora heads home, a vessel disguised as an iceberg crashes into her ship. Unknown attackers kill the crew and steal Cora’s samples. Cora survives to join the subsequent investigation by NUMA’s Kurt Austin and sidekick Joe Zavela, which leads them to Ryland Lloyd, an environmentalist who believes climate change actually benefits the planet in the long run. No surprise, Lloyd turns out to have a hidden agenda related to the ice. The suspense builds as the NUMA team races to avert global catastrophe. This is another classic Cussler action thriller. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency.

February 1, 2021

Kurt Austin and his team battle a ruthless billionaire who made a terrifying scientific discovery in the latest "NUMA Files" title (after Journey of the Pharaohs). Antarctic research has uncovered an algae that will initiate a global ice age if allowed to run rampant in normal ocean waters. A former NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) scientist disappears along with the vessel she was on, so Kurt and his assistant, Joe Zavala, head to the South Pole to find her. Simultaneously, allies travel to a research center to investigate the samples that initiated the expedition. Everywhere they go they find resistance and violence. The villain's plot is daunting, and NUMA has no chance of success--in other words, a typical day for Kurt Austin. VERDICT The pace never slows, and the villains are extra nasty in this entry that delivers what readers expect when they see Cussler's name on the cover. Cussler, who died in 2020, and frequent cowriter Brown convey marine biology's complexities in a way that makes it believable and understandable. Grab a comfy chair and plan to read all night.--Jeff Ayers, formerly with Seattle P.L.

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