MEDUSA: A Kurt Austin Adventure
Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos
Putnam Adult
Fiction/Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9780399155659
In 1848, 18-year-old Caleb Nye lands himself a spot in seafaring history in his adventure on a Pacific whaling vessel, the Princess. On his first voyage, the Massachusetts farm boy rows toward a gigantic whale in the lead harpoon boat. The excursion has been fruitless, with seamen discouraged, fearful they will return from the sea with no whale oil. Luck changes but with great peril to the crew. The angry whale turns to attack, reeling from the first harpoons that sting its hide. Finally, the harpooner plunges a pointed lance deep into its flesh, killing the raging beast. Before succumbing, it clenches the boat in its massive jaws. Frantic, seamen race to right the boat. In a sea of blood, the whale thrashes and finally dies. But Nye is missing, presumed thrown overboard.
When the whale is cut open, movement from its stomach pouch causes alarm. A human leg flops through the opening; Caleb has been swallowed by the whale. Still alive, he is nursed to recovery. But his wizened, bleached skin marks him an oddity for the rest of his life. He remains on the ship when the entire crew takes shore leave on Pohnpei, a lush island paradise, while goods are restocked.
Everyone, including Captain Dobbs, sickens with a deadly plague. Soon, nearly beached on a hostile island, Caleb’s ghostly appearance frightens the natives into providing liquid from wooden buckets that emit a blue luminescence. The next morning, rashes disappear, fevers and delirium break, and the sick men recover. Years later, on his deathbed, Captain Dobbs gives Caleb the logbook from that fateful voyage. Readers must heed the story in the above described prologue to appreciate the maritime adventures of today, told in chapters one and beyond.
A novel from the NUMA Files, Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos has written a page-turner that cannot be laid aside easily. For the government-run NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency), Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala conduct special assignments, this time in waters of Micronesia. The Bathysphere 3 expedition will submerge a diving bell to the ocean floor. Austin and biomedical researcher Dr. Max Kane will ride the bell to photograph the habits and habitat of rare jellyfish known as Blue Medusa.
Dr. Kane’s project, off the coast of Bermuda, has been to synthesize a vaccine for protection against a lethal newly discovered virus. The mysterious Blue Medusa holds the secret to the cure, but extensive work has yet to produce a viable vaccine. At present, China experiences an outbreak of the virus that threatens to ravage the entire country. The disease possibly will wreak more devastation than the pandemic of 1918.
Dr. Kane’s excursion with Austin into Neptune’s underworld brings him away from his underwater lab off Bermuda. But his team works feverishly toward their goal in his absence. Dr. Song Lee, a brilliant Harvard-educated Chinese immunologist, joins in their effort.
Underwater adventure engulfs the NUMA team along with Kane’s group when renegade Asian gangsters invade the peaceful blue Pacific waters. A diabolical plot threatens the entire world, with pandemic death, monetary imbalance, political instability and worldwide chaos. Their oxygen source removed, left without a visible means to the surface, Austin and Dr. Kane are marked men on the ocean floor. Austin’s entire crew must coordinate to rescue him from death. Engineer Zavala will exert his utmost mental resources to recover the lost bathysphere. Before adventure’s end, history will provide them clues to save not only their own lives but those of millions.
Cussler’s style is rapid, direct and entertaining. Throughout I tried to determine which sections may have been written by one of the authors. The idea is unimportant because the words flow together easily, and one is entranced by the story and players involved. Romantic nuance makes for emotional attachment to both male and female characters. Underwater buffs will gain knowledge of both historical and contemporary salvage tours of oceans’ depths. Cussler is today’s patriarch of oceanic adventure, boosted by Kemprecos’s collaboration, making MEDUSA a must-read.
--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad
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