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FLOOD TIDE opens with Dirk Pitt on vacation. Why do you think that is not going to
last long? Because quite simply, he's Dirk Pitt, and wherever he travels adventure just
seems to follow. Day one he manages to have his house bugged. Day two he is in the water
setting up surveillance on the remodeled fish cannery where Qin Shang, a Chinese shipping
magnate has made his home a fortress.
Shang's business is smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants into the country to be used as
indentured slaves. While searching the lake with an specially devised robotic observation
device, Pitt makes an amazing discovery. There is a mass grave of Chinese bodies under the
water.
He manages to rescue a few people destined to be Shang's next victims including an
undercover INS official, Julia Marie Lee. She, of course, becomes Pitt's latest love
interest.
The adventure then leads to New Orleans where where Shang is constructing a huge shipping
port. And away we go with Cussler's signature plot twists and curves which keep readers
turning the pages and trying to figure the outcome. What is the real goal here? What is
the prize? Is it the cargo in the ship that Chiang Kai-shek filled with treasure when he
fled China in 1949? Is it the desire to populate the U.S. with Asians? While both of these
are of interest to Chang his ultimate goal is to divert the Mississippi River for his own
purposes.
Remember this is a Cussler book. What else would you expect?
The showdown at the end is pure drama with enough suspense to make readers long for
another Pitt story right away. But wait. Maybe he should take a vacation
first.
--- Reviewed by Carol Fitzgerald (CKCF)
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
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