Mining engineer Philip Mercer attends a Paris rare book auction, charged by a friend with buying a nineteenth-century journal written by Godin de Lepinay. Lepinay explored Panama during the planning stages of the Panama Canal, and Mercer’s friend Gary Barber thinks that the journal might offer some clues to finding a fabled Incan treasure. At the auction, a mysterious Chinese bidder buys everything associated with the Panama Canal. Luckily the auctioneer is an old friend of Mercer’s, and sets aside the journal for him. But, Mercer doesn’t make it very far from the auction house before he finds himself being pursued by three Chinese assassins. He leads them on a chase through the catacombs and sewers of Paris, eventually managing to escape with the journal intact.

Mercer then travels to Panama as quickly as he can, intending to meet up with his friend. He arrives at Berber’s base camp deep in the jungle only to find the whole team dead. Mercer and Captain Lauren Vanik, a U.S. Army officer stationed nearby, scope out the area, and are nearly killed by another team of Chinese mercenaries. Realizing that they have stumbled into the middle of some sinister plot, they set out to investigate further. Along the way, they are joined by a team of French Foreign Legionnaires, a former canal pilot, and a retired sea captain, and reveal an impending Chinese power-grab on the world stage.

I picked this book up because I was curious what one of Clive Cussler’s “co-writers” writes under his own name. Unsurprisingly, Cussler and DuBrul seem to be cut from the same cloth. River of Ruin contains many of the elements that make up the standard Cussler formula: a rugged scientist/adventurer, a gorgeous and very capable love interest, an archaeological puzzle, water-based action sequences, and a nefarious plot to take over the world. DuBrul’s tale comes across as a bit more grounded in reality than do many of Cussler’s, however; River of Ruin is still a thrill-a-minute adventure novel, but it is lergely free of the “oh, come on!” moments that abound in Cussler.

Sock is, at its heart, a mystery novel; a woman is murdered and the protagonist, a policeman, sets out to find her killer. But, as one might expect from the self-described “larger, louder half” of Penn & Teller, this is far from your standard detective novel. The story is narrated by Dickie, the main character’s sock monkey. Dickie’s owner, who we only know as ‘the Little Fool’ for most of the book, is a cop, but he’s not a detective. He’s a police diver who spends most of his time pulling bodies out of New York’s East River; he doesn’t normally solve cases. But, when one of the bodies he retrieves turns out to be that of Nell, one of his ex-girlfriends, the Little Fool decides to try his hand at detective work.

He has to do so in a completely unofficial capacity, of course, and he enlists the help of Tommy, Nell’s best friend and pedicurist. The unlikely partners spend all their free time trying to reconstruct Nell’s last days and figure out who might have murdered her. They get a break in the form of a note from the killer. But, as the Little Fool finds the note pinned to another body he pulls out of the river, it also means that they’re dealing with a dangerous psychopath who will almost certainly kill again.

Penn’s sock monkey narrator certainly provides an interesting twist, but I found Dickie’s stream-of-consciousness narrative style to be somewhat distracting. I could get used to it after awhile, but it made for a slow start every time I picked up the book. Also, although Penn has a fairly interesting story to tell, he does it in a very vulgar manner. I’m not easily offended, but I found the sheer quantity of cursing and descriptions of sex acts to be a bit much. I read some of this book while traveling, and at times I felt the need to cover chapter titles so that people around me wouldn’t see them. I can’t really recommend this book; I’d say that your time would be much better spent watching some of Penn & Teller’s wonderful magic or their in-your-face skeptic series “Bullshit!” on Showtime.

In The Chase, Clive Cussler for the first time strays from his usual nautical focus (although the book’s opening scene does take place on a salvage boat) and his interwoven casts of existing characters. His new protagonist, Isaac Bell, does take seom cues from the Dirk Pitt/Kurt Austin mold, but he also seems to take some inspiration from James West (of The Wild Wild West as well. Bell is a young man from a wealthy family who, just after the turn of the twentieth century, is the best detective at the private Van Dorn agency (modelled after the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Bell is called to Denver to help in the investigation of a particularly brutal bank robber known only as the Butcher Bandit. The Bandit hits banks when they have large amounts of cash on hand, kills all witnesses, and always manages to disappear completely. Bell and his fellow Van Dorn agents hunt the Butcher Bandit and his beautiful accomplice throughout the western U.S., involving a train vs. car race through California and culminating in a steam locomotive chase over the Sierras, through Nevada and Idaho, and into Montana.

I enjoyed this book more than Cussler’s last few novels. It’s fresh subject matter for him, and The Chase has no co-author. I hope that he’ll Write more Isaac Bell novels and that he’ll do them himself, rather than farming them out to his growing stable of collaborators.

Fool is Christopher Moore's retelling of King Lear, told from the perspective of — who else — Lear’s court jester. The jester, who Moore names Pocket, may be a fool by trade, but he is certainly no dunce. He has free run of the castle, friends in both high and low places, and with Lear’s protection is free to make fun of whoever he wants. He is also very close to Lear’s daughters Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia. Pocket is most loyal to Lear and Cordelia, and throughout Moore’s take on the tale, it is his behind-the-scenes scheming that serves to protect their interests and lives.

Fool opens with a tongue-in-cheek warning from Moore that “This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity…” In other words, Shakespeare probably would’ve loved it. Moore acknowledges that taking on one of the most famous plays by the best known English writer of all time was a daunting task. But, then again, this is from the same man who wrote a novel about the lost years in the life of Jesus (and his best friend Biff). He retains basically all of Lear’s complex plot, although he of course makes Pocket and his machinations more integral to that plot. The ending is different, though — you can’t have a comic novel with a truly tragic finish. Moore also brings in dialog and characters from other of the Bard’s plays, most notably the trio of witches from Macbeth.

I’ve read all of Christopher Moore’s novels, and I think that Fool is one of his best. I read most of the book during a stint in a pit orchestra (coincidentally for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard, which also features a jester), and I had to be very careful not to laugh out loud at inopportune moments. A familiarity with King Lear is helpful but by no means a requirement for reading Fool; reading the synopsis on Wikipedia is probably sufficient preparation. I can’t recommend Moore’s writing highly enough, for those readers who enjoy a twisted sense of humor. Start with Fool, Lamb, or Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, then check out some of his other novels.

The Broken Window pits Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs against a mysterious and devious criminal whose M.O. is to carefully frame innocent people for his thefts and murders. His frame jobs are so perfect that he has gone completely undetected for years. His existence only comes to light when Rhyme realizes that the evidence in a murder investigation is too perfect. Soon, the police find a number of past cases that bear the same signs, in which innocent people may very well have been convicted.

With very little to go on, Rhyme et. al. set about learning more about their quarry. But, he always seems to be a couple of steps ahead of them; the closer they get, the more he seems to know about them and their plans. It quickly becomes apparent that this criminal can somehow find out anything about anyone — and in his hands, knowledge is certainly power.

As is his wont, Deaver packs plenty of twists and red herrings into his tale. In his last Rhyme/Sachs novel, The Cold Moon, the detectives were too good at anticipating the twists, which sucked some of the suspense out of the book. I think that Deaver handles his surprises better in The Broken Window; he keeps both the reader and the protagonists guessing. I also like that Deaver basically sticks to a single plot in this book, rather than the interweaving of numerous subplots that he uses in some earlier books.

The only annoyance this novel holds for me has to do with Deaver’s discussions of computers (which play a central role). His use of technological terms and jargon feels slightly off in places, although he has improved a great deal sine The Blue Nowhere, his hacker mystery. This is a minor fault, though, and probably wouldn’t bother anyone who isn’t somewhat of a computer nerd.

Edward Wozny is a hotshot New York investment banker who is about to assume a prestigious position at his firm’s London branch. At the beginning of what is supposed to be two weeks off to prepare for his move, Edward is summoned to an apartment owned by important clients of his company — a British duke and duchess. He is charged with cataloging their library, which had been sent to the United States for safe keeping during World War II and then promptly forgotten about. Edward is told to keep a sharp eye out among the old tomes for a certain book by Gervase of Langford.

Lacking any training in librarianship or particular interest in old books, Edward is initially annoyed, but finds himself strangely drawn in following an afternoon with the dusty volumes. He visits the Chenoweth Rare Book and Manuscript Repository, where he serendipitously encounters Margaret Napier, a Gervase of Langford scholar. Although she (and most everyone else) considers the book Edward is looking for to be a myth, she agrees to help with the cataloging.

Meanwhile, a programmer friend gives Edward a copy of a computer game called MOMUS. The game is hyper-real and somewhat enigmatic; no one knows exactly who created it. Edward quickly becomes immersed in MOMUS, spending more and more of his free time in the virtual world.

While examining the contents of the library, Margaret becomes increasingly convinced that the mysterious book does exist, and was once a part of the collection. She and Edward embark on a hunt to find the book. They dig up information about the library’s history, sneak into the Chenoweth’s massive archival facility, and unwittingly become embroiled in the schemes of British nobles. As they proceed, Edward begins to notice eerie similarities between MOMUS and their real-life quest.

The premise of Codex, with its forgotten library, mythical manuscript, and eerily relevant computer game has potential. But, the book itself turns out to be somewhat lackluster and disappointing. MOMUS is set up to have important parallels to the search for the Gervase book, but there are only ever a few of these. The whole computer game suplot seems underdeveloped and out of place. Also, the book’s ending isn’t very satisfying. The plot gets increasingly complex, then just seems to peter out.

A couple of errors (that should have been caught by an editor) early in the book soured my opinion somewhat, as well. One is a reference to tree sap turning into amber over a few thousand years (amber is formed from tree resin over millions of years). The other is a mention of illustrations of “vivisected corpses” (“vivi-” meaning “living”; a corpse can be dissected, but not vivisected).

Codex is okay, not great. If you find it (as I did) at a used book sale for a buck and want a quick, largely mindless read, go for it. Otherwise, don’t bother.

Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) is summoned by the Navy to aid in the search for a top-secret submarine. The sub, Starbuck, has gone missing in an area called the Pacific Vortex, a counterpart to the Bermuda Triangle. The searchers not only fail to find the sub, they are unable to find any trace of any of the almost forty ships known to have disappeared in the Vortex during the preceding thirty years. Pitt’s investigation of the Starbuck — and the Pacific Vortex in general — leads him to vanished scientists, legends of a sunken Pacific civilization, and a mysterious criminal mastermind known only as Delphi.
Pacific Vortex! was the sixth Dirk Pitt novel to be published, but it was actually the first one Cussler wrote. Indeed, its events take place before those of The Mediterranean Caper, Cussler’s first published novel. In a brief preface, Cussler states that he was reluctant to publish Pacific Vortex! because, among other reasons, “it does not weave the intricate plots of his [Pitt’s] later exploits.” Maybe I’m just getting sick of the formulaic nature of the more recent books Cussler has “co-written” (whatever that really means), but I liked this book because the plot wasn’t ridiculously intricate.

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities revolves around conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The pair sit in the Great Khan’s gardens, and Marco Poli tells of all the cities he has visited on his travels. Many — if not most — of these cities lie within the Khan’s empire, which is so vast that the ruler himself has never seen much of it.

The cities Polo describes all have women’s (or at least feminine) names: Octavia, Despina, Hypatia, Sophronia, etc. Polo presents fifty-five cities, each as an almost poetic vignette. Some of these concern a city’s history — or future. Others describe a city’s layout, arrangement, or architecture. Still others tell of the effects a city has on a traveler, either during or after his visit. Nearly all of Polo’s descriptions are fabulous: one city is built on tall stilts over dry land, another mirrors the goings-on in a subterranean version of itself, yet another consists of permanent carnival rides and temporary marble buildings.

Calvino arranges Polo’s fifty-five vignettes into nine chapters and categorizes them: five each of cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and signs, thin cities, trading cities, cities and eyes, cites and names, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, continuous cities, and hidden cities. Each chapter begins and ends with an exchange between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The pair ponders to what degree the Great Khan can ever truly know his empire, the nature of cities, and even the nature of existence.

I enjoyed Invisible Cities quite a bit. Calvino’s cities are delightfully fantastic, and his brief but rich descriptions provide ample fodder for expansion by a reader’s imagination. I particularly like the way in which Calvino blurs the temporal setting of the book. Kublai Khan and Marco Polo lived in the thirteenth century, and much of the book fits this time period. But, amid palaces, vellum, and camel caravans, Calvino’s Polo also describes radar antennae, airports, and advertising jingles.

I liked this book more than I did If on a winter’s night a traveler, the one other book by Calvino that I’ve read. I think I’ll seek out more of his work.

During a total solar eclipse (which is somehow simultaneously visible from San Francisco, Alaska, and Guam), massive earthquakes rock the Ring of Fire that surrounds the Pacific. Air Force One, with the President on board, flees the quakes in Guam only to mysteriously crash in the ocean. Among the ships called to the crash site is the Deep Fathom, a deep-sea salvage vessel owned and operated by ex-Navy SEAL and former astronaut Jack Kirkland. Jack and the rest of the Fathom’s crew had been on the verge of salvaging a World War II-era Japanese ship full of gold bars when the seismic activity opened a rift in the sea floor and their prize melted in a pool of magma.

On the sea floor below where Air Force One crashed, jack and his team discover a strange crystal spire that bears writing in an unknown language. They also find that the plane’s wreckage has somehow been magnetized.
Meanwhile, Canadian anthropologist Karen Grace and her computer scientist friend Miyuki Nakano set out to investigate two formerly submerged pyramid-like objects off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. Upon reaching the site, the pair finds that in addition to the pyramids, the earthquakes have raised an entire ancient city above the waves.They investigate, finding a crystal star covered in mysterious symbols and getting chased by armed thugs. Karen and Miyuki escape with the hlep of Gabriel, Miyki’s AI computer assistant.

The pair manages to connect with Jack and his team when the two groups find that they have found similar crystal artifacts with the same type of writing. They discover that the crystal has strange light-and-gravity properties, and join forces to learn more about the crystal and the lost civilization that carved both the star and the underwater spire.

Rollins’s story only gets more ridiculous from this point. Through the course of the book, we get an entire sunken continent, a fight with a giant squid, the outbreak of war between China and the United States, the threat of world destruction from solar flares interacting with the crystal, a fail-safe system involving an intercontinental ballistic missile, a particle-beam satellite weapon that the protagonists easily hack into and control, and a time portal. In the end, the heroes manage to not only dispose of their enemies and save the world, they actually send the rest of the world back in time to before the eclipse, thus preventing all the bad stuff in the book from ever happening. Thus, Rollins has managed to write a book that while similar in content to some of Clive Cussler’s novels, far surpasses even Cussler’s more recent books in terms of absurdity.

Perhaps what I liked least about the book is Rollins’s inclusion of multiple pseudo-scientific theories and dubious archaeological “discoveries” — the lost continent of Mu, the Pyramids of Yonaguni, etc. He expands on chauvinistic theories that the various Polynesian peoples couldn’t have possibly built the megalithic structures on Pohnpei, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Tonga, and elsewhere in the Pacific. Rather, they must have been built by some ancient lost culture. At least he stops just short of suggesting alien intervention.

Deep Fathom is certainly meant to be light, escapist fiction, but for me it’s just too absurd. I won’t be picking up any of Rollins’s other books any time soon.

Up-and-coming writer John Boot desperately wants an excuse to leave London so as to escape an unwanted admirer. He spots the perfect opportunity when civil war breaks out in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. He persuades an influential friend to get him a job as a foreign correspondent for one of the major London newspapers. This friend convinces Lord Copper, the head of the Dail Beast, to hire boot and send him to Ishmaelia. But owing to ambiguous instructions and subordinates eager to cater to Lord Copper's every whim, the wrong Boot gets shipped to Africa.

William Boot has no aspirations to fame or adventure; prior to his promotion to foreign correspondent, William had written a bi-weekly nature column for the Beast from the comport of his somewhat ramshackle rural family estate. Now, William finds himself in a land about which he knows nothing, assigned to a task for which he has little aptitude, experience, or interest. On top of this, he has to contend with scheming competitors, slow and misdirected telegrams, and the vagaries of the ever-changing Ishmaelite government.

Waugh is in top form here, satirizing sensationalist newsmen, incompetent business leaders, banana republics, and a handful of other things. Some of his references are a little obscure for a reader separated from him by seventy years and the Atlantic Ocean, but the rest of the book is hilarious enough to more than make up for it.