Dirk Pitt, indestructible hero of 14 previous Clive Cussler novels and special projects director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (which is something like the CIA of the ocean depths), makes James Bond look like a tuxedoed, martini-swilling poser. Pitt has raised the Titanic, escaped massive volcanic eruptions, ducked nuclear explosions, foiled criminal plans for world domination, saved everyone on Earth from germ warfare and mastered the ins and outs of various electronic gizmos and futuristic vehicles while evading every imaginable form of almost certain death. (Of course, he's also wildly successful with brilliant, beautiful women, but in an admirably circumspect, sensitive-guy way.) It stands to reason Pitt's the right man to handle a crisis of millennial proportions.

When mysterious black obsidian skulls and other artefacts of an exceedingly ancient culture begin to turn up in odd places, Pitt jumps in with both feet. It soon becomes dangerously apparent that a powerful, amoral group of fanatics calling itself the Fourth Empire wants the strange discoveries to remain underground. Pitt teams up with a beautiful red-haired expert in ancient languages to decipher the meaning of the artefacts. They were made 10 millennia ago in a then-temperate Antarctica by a seafaring civilization advanced enough to predict its own destruction by a comet impact. Now the Fourth Empire (whose literal and figurative progenitor comes as no surprise) is predicting a similar disaster in only a matter of months and preparing to take control of the Earth.

Cussler's known for hands-on research--his hobbies are the backbone of Pitt's adventures: Flying, climbing, diving, racing. His scientific and historical riffs that fill in the background of Atlantis Found are the weakest parts of the book--they're Pitt-less, and give every discovery in the book away early. But what the heck--Cussler's not the king of suspense, he's the emperor of non-stop action. Atlantis Found bounces along on a good-humoured techno-joyride and for Cussler's legion of fans, that will be more than enough. --Barrie Trinkle

September 1858: An Antarctic whaler stumbles upon an aged wreck, its grisly frozen crew guarding crates of odd antiquities - including a beautifully carved obsidian skull. March 2001: A team of anthropologists gaze in awe at a well of strange inscriptions, moments before a blast seals them deep within the Colorado rock. April 2001: A research ship in the Antarctic is set upon and nearly sunk by an impossibility - a Nazi submarine thought to have been destroyed 56 years before. Dirk Pitt knows that somehow these incidents are connected, and his investigations soon land him in the midst of an ancient mystery with very modern consequences, racing to save not only his own life - but the future of the world itself.

2008-08-28 Another brilliant adventure

I have never been a big fan of action thrillers. The only author I read regularly in this genre is Lee Child and his `Jack Reacher` character, and I enjoy him a lot, so I decided to give Clive Cussler a try. I am happy to say I was not disappointed! Even though "Pacific Vortex" was the first published book in the Dirk Pitt adventures series, it was the first Cussler wrote, so logically, this is the novel I picked to start my journey. I found an interesting character that lives at the edge and is passionate about his work. Also in some aspects he is similar to James Bond, women mainly, and the mix is sufficient to keep the reader thoroughly entertained. If you enjoy serial characters then this is a must series for you, also try Michael Connelly`s `Harry Bosh` series, or much more violent is the `Soft Target` thrillers by Conrad Jones. In the Dirk pitt stories Cussler has created a very entertaining series, with a character that has an arrogant and pedantic side, but whom also shows his pure emotions and is true to his friends and ideals. This makes the Special Project Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency a very likable character. This is a book that a reader can breeze through in a few hours making it an enjoyable way to spend a weekend's afternoon. I will surely read the next book in this series hoping for a similar experience.