THE EMPEROR'S REVENGE

Cussler (Piranha, 2015, etc.) charges co-author Morrison with chronicling another rollicking Juan Cabrillo adventure.

Disgruntled Ukrainian navy captain Sergey Golov has pirated Achilles, the private yacht of Russian mega-billionaire Maxim Antonovich. Golov's accomplice is his daughter, Ivana, a computer whiz. She’s also the infamous hacker ShadowFoe, which means she has the keyboard savvy to warp 30 billion euros into secret foreign accounts and then stall pursuit by uploading a virus to computers controlling the European electric power grid. Ivana’s virus is unbreakable. It’s based on math formulas theorized by 19th-century genius Alexei Polichev, whose papers were purloined during Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Daddy Golov will find and destroy Polichev’s notes while Ivana infects the network. First, she steals a few million from Credit Condamine. Bad choice. That’s the Oregon crew’s bank. Newbies get a précis on Cabrillo and his privatized CIA–like company and its floating headquarters, Oregon, a cutting-edge warship disguised as a tramp steamer. However, Achilles has been equipped with a railgun and a laser defense weapon by the same Vladivostok shipyard. Sea battles, anyone? Wait! Cabrillo must first foil the Saharan Islamic Caliphate’s nuclear ambitions. Then it’s nefarious deeds and heroic derring-do from the Monaco Grand Prix to Malta, Germany, Lithuania, Holland, and the Baltic. The exotic weapons–driven, more-threads-than-a-sweater narrative explodes with action, dead bodies hither and yon, with Cabrillo making enough skin-of-the-teeth escapes that he’ll need to visit his dentist. The cast is comprised of one-size-fits-all stalwart or malevolent characters, and the locations are anchored by spare descriptions of landmarks, but when there’s "only ten days to prevent the world from suffering a disastrous financial meltdown," the Oregon’s ready to rescue.

The Cussler conglomerate holds the patent on the Don’t analyze, turn the page! manly action adventure.