I...am having a hard time figuring out what to say about this novel. I believe the "ARGH" pencilled in near the end of the copy I read may say it all.

(that "ARGH" no doubt had to do with a xiphos, a Spartan sword, being referred to as having "gleaming steel" showing through on the blade. The xiphos was bronze and, in later times, iron. There would be no gleaming steel.)

That, really, says it all. This book read like someone spliced some action scenes into a series of Wikipedia printouts - the entire thing was an infodump. Or, to be more accurate, a series of infodumps pertaining to everything from Nazi minisubs to Napoleonic winemaking techniques to Crimean Sea smuggling tactics. In between, there were lavishly detailed descriptions of how to temporarily disable a speedboat, or extract a tracking chip from an iPhone.

Truly, this was research porn. Cussler obviously sketched out a vague scenario - one that made next to no sense, veering as it did from Nazi minisubs in the Carolinas to vineyards in France to THE TREASURIES OF DELPHI - and handed it off to his cowriter on a paper napkin. The cowriter clearly enjoys researching, and couldn't bear to eliminate any of his thousands of carefully compiled notes and references. So instead, he incorporated them all into the novel, as its main text. Add a character or two here and there, and a few guns and explosions, and boom! Novel. With convenient Nazi sub on the cover, seeing as all Clive Cussler novels appear to be mandated to have Nazi subs on their cover (if the preview of the next book the publisher is touting in the back is to be trusted).

In all honesty, this wasn't a BAD book. It read quickly, and I even learned a few things. But it was rather like going on a Wikipedia binge and clicking from link to link to link and finding myself, four hours later, on a page that I can't figure out how I got to, bleary-eyed and slightly dizzy. Only with more explosions, and a bit more stilted dialogue.

At least now I know how to take that tracking chip out of my phone, though.