Reviews for Sahara : a Novel

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Not since Treasure (1988), when Dirk Pitt discovered Cleopatra's barge in Texas (or was it on the Mississippi Delta?), has Cussler come up with so far-fetched a story as this herein, the tenth Pitt novel. The plot begins with a Confederate ironclad, the Texas, outrunning a Union blockade while carrying on board not only the South's treasury but also the North's kidnapped president. Then, in 1931, world-famed aviatrix Kitty Mannock (an Amelia Earhart clone) vanishes on a flight over the Sahara, her plane or body never seen again. Then comes Dirk Pitt's 1996 search through the Nile bottom (via image-making computerized sonar) for the lost barge of a pharaoh dead some 2500 years. Dirk locates the barge under many meters of silt; but before he can even make the Egyptian authorities aware of the find, he's reassigned by the National Underwater and Marine Agency to investigate the source of poisons that are killing coral and creating a red tide on such a massive scale that the world's oxygen supply will soon shrink to an unlivable level if the horror can't be reversed. Dirk rescues from assassination and falls for beautiful Eva Rojas of the World Health Organization, who is in Africa to find the source of the fatal plague now turning thousands of natives into bands of frenzied cannibals who'll eat anything human and are fearless of gunfire. Whence this malignancy? As Pitt discovers, the country of Mali- -backed by a ruthless French industrialist--is in the solar nuclear waste disposal business, but the bad guys have poisoned the water table with their inept methods and befouling of the Niger. How does this tie in with Kitty Mannock's desert crash and her discovery of the Texas buried in the Sahara sands? And whose well-preserved, noble-featured body does Pitt find seated in a rocking chair in the ironclad? His initials are A.L.... For the faithful.


Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Dirk Pitt, a 007-kind of guy (with Ollie North tendencies), works for the National Underwater and Marine Agency and does what the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the U.S. government can't do. He and partner Al Giordino are assigned to determine the cause of a surge in the red tide off the coast of western Africa. Microorganisms with a red tinge normally come and go with the currents, but now they are reproducing exponentially and will soon stifle the oxygen required to support global life. Dirk and Al first discover a foreign substance acting as a catalyst amongst the organisms; then they find the source of the substance, which flows underground across Mali from Fort Foureau, the hazardous waste-disposal plant owned by French tycoon Yves Massarde. Up the Niger River and into Mali go Dirk and Al, whose adventures are just beginning. Pepper the plot with human-rights abuse, cannibalism, state-of-the-art weaponry, espionage, and the evil General Zateb Kazim--and you've got more than enough action to keep the Cussler's thrill-craving fans satiated. For the occasional diversion, Dirk is always ready to crack a joke or cite an old movie, or even dispel an interesting Civil War rumor concerning Abraham Lincoln's assassination. And, yes, after all that, he still makes time to sweep his woman off her feet. (Reviewed Apr. 1, 1992)0671681559Kathryn LaBarbera


Publishers Weekly
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With this 14-week PW bestseller in cloth, Cussler delivers great fun, as his durable hero Dirk Pitt returns to save mankind from a greedy industrialist, solving some historical riddles along the way. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved


Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Cussler's ( Raise the Titanic ) durable hero Dirk Pitt returns with Al Giordino, his amiable hulk of a sidekick, to save mankind from a greedy industrialist in cahoots with a despot and to solve a few historical riddles along the way. Dirk meets beautiful Eva Rojas, a World Health Organization team member inspecting a mysterious epidemic that has struck in the Sahara, when he interrupts an attempt on her life. Then the National Underwater and Marine Agency sends Pitt and Giordino up the Niger on a gunboat to find the source of a toxin that causes red tide organisms to reproduce out of control, threatening to poison the oceans and deplete the earth's oxygen supply. The pairalso in next sentence is captured by evil billionaire Yves Massarde and Mali's tyrannical despot Gen. Kazim, but they escape to find the source of the pollution at Fort Foreau, Massarde's desert toxic waste factory that receives--but doesn't dispose of--nuclear and chemical wastes. Recaptured, Pitt and Giordino are sent to Kazim's desert slave camp, where they find Eva and her team--marked for death. A deadly trek across the Sahara is their only hope. Cussler champions ecological issues with verve, and continues his love affair with history by tossing in a Confederate ironside stranded in the Sahara near the remains of an aviatrix lost during the '30s. Some judicious cutting might have improved the narrative, but it's great fun nonetheless, putting Beau Geste swashbucklers against the vilest of villains. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild super release; Doubleday Book Club alternate; author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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