Book info

• Title Pacific Vortex!
• Author Clive Cussler
• Year 1983
• Genres Action, Adventure, Thriller

Fully armed and with all hands on board, the nuclear submarine Starbuck sailed into the calm Pacific Ocean for sea trials - and vanished. No wreckage, no signals, no survivors: nothing... until ace maritime troubleshooter Dirk Pitt finds a single, chilling clue in the shark-torn surf off Hawaii - the log of the Starbuck. A crazed journal of madness and death is all that remains. And the Captain's final, scrawled, fear-crazed note locates the Starbuck's grave hundreds of miles from her last known position! The search for the Starbuck plunges Dirk Pitt into his most shattering assignment to date - a whirlpool of deep-sea mystery and terror - the Pacific Vortex!

Thoughts

I’ve read a handful of Dirk Pitt books but not for a long while and I thought it made sense to go right back to the beginning of the adventure. This book wasn’t the first one published but it is the first in Pitt’s timeline, and therefore we see him right at the start of his journey.

He’s already a grizzled veteran of the sea, but not a perfect specimen - a reputation as a bit of a womaniser, and my god does he fall in love with that Summer creature quickly. But he wants what’s best for the planet and has a strong moral code which makes him the right person to take on this book’s big bad.

I do like a thriller that revolves around a large scale mystery that could unravel the planet, and a handful of intrepid heroes facing up to them, and that’s exactly what this is. Plus it has submarines in it, and I love them too! All good and can’t wait to read more.

Rating: 4 / 5