needs better editing
From Amazon
I love CC books and have read all of them. This one had a couple, at least. of glaring editorial errors. Either that, or the author cannot remember what he wrote. At the beginning, describing the sinking of the Princess, he is very careful to let us know that the Chinese officer in charge of the cargo very carefully removed or destroyed all communication gear from the ship. Of course, the ship's captain objected, in case of an emergency, they would not be able to send out an SOS call. No matter, all that gear came out, the ship did sink and could not radio a distress signal. Later on, Pitt is with Mr. Purlmutter, the naval historian, who looks up the name of the ship and says, Oh yes, a radio operator off the coast of S. America received an SOS radio call from that ship, but she disappeared and has not been heard of since. Hmmm, a phantom radio? Space aliens??
Also, later Pitt asks his computer expert to look up any info on the evil Chinese mastermine, but the report was extremely skimpy. Nothing of note to report. However, again, later in the book, both Adm. Sandecker and Rudi Gunn are giving Pitt reams of info on Qin. Where did they get their information??
The book is a standard Clive Cussler book, which I enjoyed. I like all of his books. I just cannot help noting these minor descrepencies in the story line. It kind of puts me off for the book in general.
my 13th clive cussler novel
From Amazon
Flood Tide is my 13th novel by Clive Cussler. I buy them at random depending on what I feel like reading at the time instead of buying them in series order. That said, most of the ones I've bought have been part of his Dirk Pitt series but I've bought a couple of his Kurt Austin series and even one of his Oregon Files series.
Flood Tide deals with one of the earlier adventures in Dirk Pitt's NUMA career.Most of the dates in the book referance the year 2000 as the present time and this story has Dirk Pitt as a single man.
However, future books bring the character up through the years though as of this review I don't know of one that uses year 2010.
Also, while Pitt stays a troubleshooter for NUMA thoughout the series he developes from a single man to a married, family man in later books. How this effects his character I leave up to the reader to find out.
I hope everyone enjoys the books as much as I have.
Decent adventure
From Amazon
This book has all the hallmarks of a good action-adventure novel: a handsome, courageous hero (Dirk Pitt), a beautiful woman (INS agent Julia) and a sidekick (Al Giordino, hungry as ever), exotic locales (generally the bottom of the sea, with forays into Louisiana, China, and Korea), and gadgetry (all manner of ships and submersibles). The book's plot revolves around an industrialist who wants to increase his immigrant smuggling operation by diverting the mighty Mississippi River. Not the greatest adventure ever written, and not even the greatest Dirk Pitt adventure, but a good read.
Im not saying I could write it better. But close.
From Amazon
This is my first time reading a Dirk Pitt novel. The book is supposed to be about some aquatic explorer of government pay grade who discovers a large illegal immigrant smuggling corporation from the country of... CHINA? What you never heard of Americas huge problem with all these darn Chinese hopping across the Pacific ocean and slipping into our country? Oh yah that doesn't exist. Anyway the main character (Dirk Pitt) is finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time and throws himself into an adventure to destroy this evil mad Chinese man.
The beginning on this book is confusing and even now having finished the book I still don't understand why it began the way it did. They start you off in what seems to be the set up for the rest of the book but all of the sudden as a new chapter begins, you are thrown into a different setting with different characters. The expected connections to the rest of the story never come so its like reading a book and never making progress in the story because each chapter starts a new story.
The few times that the author lets you understand what is going on its nothing but corny statements by Dirk along with generic action moments. Clive Cussler even created a character named after himself! Come on, are you writing a 3rd grade picture book about yourself or a novel? The reason I am so critical of this fact is that Cussler has done this in many of his books. This book attempted to draw in the reader as if they were watching a movie. But it doesn't work. That's why I'm taking to the time to read a book not watch a one hour movie.
What seemed to be an attempt to keep me entertained just left me confused and to think the author was to lazy to develop any plot and deep character backgrounds. The book reads very fast but this isn't a good thing. If I wanted to have a quick shot of cheap amusement that lacked in any depth then I would watch a Steven Seagall movie. Plus, I hate Steven Seagall. I wish I could give more insight into the dynamics of this novels theme and such. But by simply reading the back of this book you would know just as much as I do except the ending. I said what I could of its most apparent features.
If only there were something good about this novel I could write about. Well, I guess if you are an activist against illegal Chinese immigration into America then you might enjoy this book. That's just about the only thing that's original about this book.
a+ all the way............
From Amazon
This is one of my favorite Cussler books. Being from the South, this story was a blast. Lots of adventure, and southern style.