http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/s...8p-221541c.html

Although he is aging gracefully and remains admirably intrepid, Dirk Pitt, the saltwater hero of 17 thrillers, has enlisted two allies in this latest battle to save civilization. They are his twin son and daughter, but since the son is named Dirk, too, some late arrivals may find themselves confused. Not only that, but Clive Cussler shares the author credit with real son Dirk Cussler. Not to worry, it all gets sorted out.

As always, the story begins with a long-ago naval event, usually fictional but so convincingly re-created that readers may well think that Cussler found it in an official report. Here, the event is the 1944 sinking off the West Coast of a Japanese sub armed with a virus so deadly that its use could change the outcome of World War II.

Fast-forward to 2007. A villainous South Korean industrialist (who's actually an agent from the North) is plotting the reunion of the two Koreas for both patriotic and economic reasons. It takes a few murders and other mayhem, but he finally recovers the virus, which he plans to drop on Los Angeles during a Hollywood gala for ministers gathered for a G8 meeting. This, he reasons, will touch off epidemics that will leave millions dead and America unable or unwilling to interfere in Korea.

That is, unless young Dirk and sister Summer, with the considerable help of Pitt Sr. and his colleagues at the National Underwater & Marine Agency, can save the day. Of course, they do. But the fun is watching the Cusslers pull it off.