Deep Six (Paperback)

While Cussler's fans, who number in the legions, faithfully purchase each new novel as it comes out, there has been a change in the novels as they have become longer in length, with more exotic locales and more fantastic in their stories.

Deep Six is one of the older novels, written in the 1980s, and does not suffer from some of the far fetched coincidences that plague the latest stories. The novel concerns itself with the machinations of the Bougainville Shipping corporation. This Korean based company has used hijacking, bribery and murder to grow to its influential status and has become involved in a plot, with the Soviet Union, to kidnap and brainwash the President of the United States.

Into this steps our hero, Dirk Pitt, of the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) who loses a friend to one of Bougainville's old crimes. While investigating this crime, he stumbles across the Presidential kidnapping plot.

Like most of the Pitt novels, this one motors along at breakneck speed as we are introduced to a surprisingly large cast of characters and spend our time moving between US government figures trying to hide knowledge of the kidnapping plot, Soviet agents aiding and trying to block the success of the kidnapping/brainwashing scheme, a private investigator seeking revenge, and a host of myriad characters. The novel nevers spends long at any one location and there is a refreshing lack of multi-dimensionality. The good guys are always good. They are willing to risk their lives for the cause of truth and justice. The bad guys are uniformly bad with no redeeming qualities.

There are, admittedly, gaps in some of the logic and you have to decide to go along for the ride at the beginning of the novel if you hope to enjoy it. However, the novel never strays into fantasy and though it may seem improbable, it never seems unbelieveable.

In the later Dirk Pitt stories, the novels are jam packed with extra information as we learn about, among other things, the diamond trade and the trade in illegal antiquities. The earlier novels, like this one, don't seek to educate but merely to entertain. There are no extraneous scenes here, everything happens for a purpose. Simply put, it is a fun adventure. Great for those times when you just want to turn your brain off and live in the moment.

For accomplishing all that it seeks to do, this novel rates a 5 stars.

Along the West coast up towards Alaska there is a weird chemical in the water that is killing off boats and people that go near it. The president of the United Sates of America is planing a boat trip on the Eagle a boat that every president has had important meetings on since Theodore Roosevelt. None of the secret service men don't think this is a good idea because of the chemical that is spreading in the water that once some one touches they are dead instantly. So they call Dirk Pit. A James Bond type of character that is going to help solve the chemical problem and make sure that the president doesn't get hurt. The president is goes on the Eagle to discuss some kind of plan with the Soviet Union, on the boat is the same Korean crew guy that killed Arta Casilighios. Dirk Pitt is on another boat trailing the Eagle and making sure nothing happens. Then one night The Eagle is missing and can't find it. There is a plan that captured the boat, and now find out the Soviet Union is behind this to.

I really like this book because it had two of my favorite genres in one. It was a mystery but also a action book. This book made me want to keep on reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen next.

I would recommend this book to whoever likes mystery and action books. I think people would like this book because it makes you think and wonder what is going to happen next