Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt Series #21)

by Clive Cussler, Dirk Cussler

Overview

Deep sea explorer and NUMA director Dirk Pitt encounters the last direct descendants of the Ottoman dynasty as they prepair to incite a revolution in this novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

In a.d. 327, a Roman galley with an extraordinary cargo barely escapes a pirate attack. In 1916, a British warship mysteriously explodes in the middle of the North Sea. In the present day, a cluster of important mosques in Turkey and Egypt are wracked by explosions.

What ties them all together? NUMA director Dirk Pitt and his team are about to find out, as Roman artifacts discovered in Turkey and Israel unnervingly connect to the rise of a fundamentalist movement determined to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire. From Washington to London to the treacherous shores of the Near East, dangerous men and desperate acts fill their path, and at the end of it, the most dangerous thing of all: the rumored existence of a mysterious “manifest,” lost long ago, which if discovered again could shed new light on early Christianity and just might change the history of the world as we know it.

Filled with breathtaking suspense and extraordinary imagination, Crescent Dawn is further proof that when it comes to adventure writing, nobody beats Clive Cussler.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425242391
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/25/2011
Series:	Dirk Pitt Series , #21
Pages:	656
Sales rank:	83,715
Product dimensions:	4.30(w) x 7.52(h) x 1.42(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Clive Cussler is the author or coauthor of over fifty previous books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA® Files, Oregon® Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo. His nonfiction works include Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt, and Built to Thrill:More Classic Automobiles from Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt, plus The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II; these describe the true adventures of the real NUMA, which, led by Cussler, searches for lost ships of historic significance. With his crew of volunteers, Cussler has discovered more than sixty ships, including the long-lost Confederate ship Hunley. He lives in Colorado and Arizona. 

 
Dirk Cussler is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of six previous Dirk Pitt® adventures: Black Wind, Treasure of Khan, Arctic Drift, Crescent Dawn, Poseidon’s Arrow,  Havana Storm, and Odessa Sea. For the past several years, he has been an active participant and partner in his father’s NUMA expeditions and has served as president of the NUMA® advisory board of trustees. Cussler lives in Arizona.

Hometown:

Phoenix, Arizona

Date of Birth:

July 15, 1931

Place of Birth:

Aurora, Illinois

Education:

Pasadena City College; Ph.D., Maritime College, State University of New York, 1997

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Arctic Drift has exotic locations, ruthless villains, and many narrow escapes and derring-do by Dirk Pitt, oceanography's answer to Indiana Jones. Cussler's fans come for swashbuckling [and] he delivers." -Associated Press

Editorial Reviews

The action runs nonstop and whambam....And Crescent Dawn has a twist that writers like Tom Clancy have never used.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Cussler once again blends history, technical knowledge, bombs, bullets, and betrayal into cinematic action."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

In the bloated fourth Dirk Pitt novel from Cussler and son Dirk (after Arctic Drift), evildoers Ozden Aktan Celik and Ozden's sister, Maria, who are bent on Muslim domination of the Middle East, plot to blow up sacred Muslim sites like Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock and pin the blame on the CIA in particular and the West in general. Dirk, the director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, and the Celiks are both searching for lost religious artifacts related to Jesus, artifacts whose rediscovery could embarrass certain powerful members of the British establishment. The authors keep the action moving with plenty of wreck diving, running sea battles, and ships laden with explosives. Fans of the indefatigable Pitt will enjoy watching their hero as he joins the battle on land, in the air, and at sea, but others might wish the Cusslers had picked less familiar terrorist targets. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

The Cussler family's latest Dirk Pitt adventure (after Arctic Drift) finds the head of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) with his wife on vacation in Turkey. While visiting a friend at a museum, they stumble onto a major theft of priceless Roman artifacts connected to a sunken ship in the Mediterranean. Things turn personal for Pitt when his wife is kidnapped. His children also get caught in the sinister plot to restore the Ottoman Empire when artifacts they uncover in Israel and Turkey lead to a mysterious "manifest." Many people over the centuries have died to protect the sacred items listed in this document, and the Pitts will have to use their skills to stop the fundamentalist threat and survive. VERDICT The adventure thrillers featuring Dirk Pitt have been hit-and-miss since Clive's son took over the franchise, but this new entry defies expectations and is arguably the best of the Dirk Cussler novels. Cussler fans will be thrilled to see their favorite hero back in his prime. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/10.—Ed.]—Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Library Journal

Mix terrorists, Roman artifacts, delusions of dynasty and irrefutable physical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth lived, then add water—from the Mediterranean Sea—and you get another aquatic adventure starring Dirk Pitt and his colleagues at NUMA.

This is Cussler's 21st effort with Pitt and the National Underwater and Marine Agency (Arctic Drift, 2008, etc.). While studying algae blooms in the Aegean Sea, the intrepid explorer stumbles upon an Ottoman Empire era shipwreck, among which there are Roman artifacts. Pitt takes his find to his friend Dr. Rey Ruppé at the Istanbul Archeology Museum hoping to discover why a medieval ship would have been carrying Roman-Christian era cargo, and the nonstop action begins. There is a cast of familiar characters, including Al Giordino, Pitt's twin children, Summer and Dirk Jr., all complemented by a crew of memorable villains, including Ozden Celik and his sister, Maria, the last direct descendants of the Ottoman dynasty. That pair is in possession of black-market HMX explosives and are intent on starting a revolution. Readers also meet assorted allied Arab terrorists, traders in purloined antiquities and a too-easily-forgiven rogue archeologist named Ridley Bannister. The 100 chapters sail by rapidly when Cussler brings in the legendary Lord Kitchener, drowned in 1916 when the British warship HMS Hampshire sinks while on a mission to Russia, Helena, the mother Emperor Constantine, a nearly perfectly preserved Roman galley in a cave on Cyprus, and a letter from Jesus to Peter. The complicated plot has the most nefarious villains dead by chapter 84. Dirk Pitt fans will be happy to note the appearance of the obligatory auto, this time a 1948 Model 135 Delahaye convertible coupe with a Henri Chapron coachwork-body.

Cussler, writing with his son, once again blends history, technical knowledge, bombs, bullets and betrayal into cinematic action.

Kirkus Reviews