In the latest in the long line of popular adventure novels by Cussler, whose first major success, Raise the Titanic, now seems eons ago, an influenza pandemic in China threatens to explode and kill countless millions. While a joint U.S. and Chinese team makes strides on a vaccine, bad guys working on their own vaccine to gain great wealth and power kidnap the scientists. Enter Cussler hero Kurt Austin (The Navigator) and his NUMA® buddies to take on the villains, and who do you think will win? Cussler loves to combine history with current action, so the key to a vaccine lies in the log of an 1847 whaling ship owned by the descendants of a crewman. VERDICT Cussler's thrillers are predictable and over the top, attributes relished by his legions of fans, and this one is filled with action, heroics, and apparently plausible science, which makes for great summer escape reading. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/09.]—Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

In the prologue to the winning eighth Kurt Austin adventure from bestseller Cussler and Shamus-winner Kemprecos (after The Navigator), 18-year-old Caleb Nye, a farm boy on his first sea voyage in 1848, finds himself a modern-day Jonah after being swallowed by a whale and then cut from the stomach, alive but forever changed. In the present, a Russian captain sees his Typhoon-class submarine sold to an unknown buyer, and in China, Dr. Song Lee, who's been banished to the countryside, gets orders to return to Beijing to fight a deadly SARS epidemic. Meanwhile, off Bermuda, Kurt Austin and the stalwart crew of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) lower a bathysphere to the ocean depths, where something big snaps the cables connecting the vessel to the mother ship. Soon enough, the disparate plot lines converge in an action-packed tale that snags readers and drags them racing through heavy seas and high drama. 600,000 first printing. (June)