It's not Dirk Pitt, but it's okay

Summary:
Kurt Austin and his partner Joe Zavala are agents of NUMA (the National Underwater and Marine Agency) who also happen to moonlight as both high speed boat racers. When their boat race takes a harrowing turn, they are turned onto something bigger than the bloated whales that very nearly kill them and their competitors. Following the tradition of Dirk Pitt and his trusty sidekick Al Giordino, Austin and Zavala have happened upon a nefarious plot to take over the world's water supply by the Gogstad corporation, spearheaded by a monstrous (meaning very tall and big) Scandinavian woman named Brynhild.

Just as Austin and Zavala are making their inroads on the Gogstad Corporation, another element of the story falls into place: Francesca Cabral, a brilliant Brazilian scientist thought lost in a plain crash over 10 years previously has been found headlining as a goddess among some very remote rainforest Indians on the border of Venezuela and Brazil. She is found by two other NUMA agents, Paul and Gamay Trout, who happen to be in the area studying freshwater dolphins.

As it turns out, Gogstad tried to kidnap Francesca 10 years previously because she was about to make public and free her desalination invention that would have made water so inexpensive that no multinational corporations (er, Gogstad) could corner the market and make gazillions of dollars. Well, the kidnapping was thwarted by her bodyguard but she still ended up going down in the middle of the rainforest. Now returned to civilization, her process has not been reinvented by anyone else and Gogstad, finding out she is still alive goes after her again. Whisking her away to their Lake Tahoe headquarters where they have built a laboratory to mimic her process, they force her to finish the development or face dire consequences.

Austin and Zavala now have to save Francesca while undermining Gogstad, but not before facing Brynhild's cronies, the Kradzik brothers, a couple of Eastern European sociopaths who were saved from war crimes tribunals by Gogstad. The plan doesn't work perfectly, but it works and the world's water supply is not taken over by Gogstad while at the same time Francesca is able to give her process to the world for free, trading her life in the process.

My Comments:
The book cover mentions that this is a novel from the NUMA files but apparently I didn't read the dust jacket close enough because I missed that this was about two nearly identical agents and not about the classic duo - Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino. Nevertheless, the story was fairly interesting, if not rather routine. I guess when you find a good recipe for success it can't really hurt to stick with it.

The book doesn't really break much new ground for Cussler, it follows the same patterns and even employs a majority of the same people, including the famed NUMA computer hacker, Hiram Yeager, Admiral Sandecker, and Rudy Gunn. The story format is also pretty similar: by chance NUMA operatives happen to be in the right place at the right time to find some connection to a much larger plot. When they begin snooping around they begin putting pieces together, continuously risk their lives, but in the end prevent major world disasters. Nothing different here.

I do have to give Cussler credit for trying to branch out from the traditional Pitt and Giordino characters. Though he hasn't put too much effort into creating unique characters (Pitt collects cars and planes, Austin collects pistols, etc.), they are kind of unique. Well, okay, they aren't really; they're actually pretty similar. But he tried. As for the rest of the story, it's pretty much standard Cussler; meaning it is fairly well written though a bit cliché at times.

The antagonist/bad guys were kind of unique, sociopathic twins and a giantess, but I'm really not going to find too much fault with Cussler's novel because, as I said above, he knows what works and knows what his strong points are (boats and dynamic duos).

I did think the final little ending scene where Cabral's water machine is put into practice in the Sahara was a little silly and could have been, if not longer, at least a bit more personable. Otherwise, it is a decent novel that follows the typical Cussler format. Don't expect any surprises - it is what Cussler is famous for and he delivers on that, nothing more, and only a little bit less. Just be warned that there is no Pitt or Giordino, just some look-alikes/wannabes.