- Shock Wave -
by Clive Cussler
Simon
& Schuster, 1996
Price on dust jacket $25.00
Number line: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN # 0-684-80297-X
From the dust jacket, "In Shock Wave, Dirk Pitt®
meets the most intriguing and sinister villain of
his adventurous and legendary career - a billionaire
Australian diamond king with three beautiful Amazon
daughters - in a conflict that is waged above and
below the sea for the survival of vast numbers of
sea creatures an more than a million human beings.
In 1856, a British clipper ship sinks after a storm
while transporting convicts to an Australian penal
colony. After horrible carnage on a raft, the pitiful
survivors, among them Betsy Fletcher and Jess Dorsett,
are washed up on a solitary tropical island, where
they discover an immense source of diamonds and found
a powerful and wealthy dynasty. One hundred forty
years later, Maeve Fletcher, on of their descendants,
is stranded on an island in Antarctica with a party
of passengers after their cruise ship seemingly abandons
them. Dirk Pitt, on an expedition to find the source
of a deadly plague that is killing dolphins and seals
in the Weddell Sea, finds Maeve and the passengers
and rescues them from death. When Pitt later uncovers
the cause of the plague, he discovers that Maeve's
father, Arthur Dorsett, and her two sisters are responsible
because of their diamond-mining technology. A deadly
race develops to stop Dorsett from continuing his
murderous mining operations and to head off a disaster
that will kill millions. Pitt's struggle to foil Dorsett's
ruthless plan to destroy the market for diamonds and
thus gain a monopoly of his own takes him from harrowing
adventures off the west coast of Canada to being cast
adrift in the Tasman Sea in a small boat with his
good friend Al Giordino and the lovely Maeve Dorsett.
Through trial by storms, hunger, and thirst, Pitt's
inventive genius and relentless drive to survive eventually
bring him to a final, spine-chilling confrontation
with Arthur Dorsett himself, at the very heart of
his domain, with the clock ticking against devastating
tragedy - a confrontation in which Pitt gains triumph,
but at the cost of great personal loss, as he discovers
a lethal surprise that will shock and astonish the
reader. Only Clive Cussler - the Grandmaster of Adventure
- could have written a story this suspenseful."
One
of the easiest Clive Cussler novels to find for a
reasonable price, in MINT condition.