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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780451412430
ISBN number: 0451412435
Label: Onyx
Manufacturer: Onyx
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: September 04, 2007
Publishing house: Onyx
Sale Popularity Level: 47986
Studio: Onyx
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Product Description:
New Jersey, 1937: A homicidal madman bears a safe holding a terrible secret that is thought lost when fiery fate intervenes. Decades later, the discovery of that secret is about to threaten the world once more....
Mining engineer Philip Mercer is in the war-torn Central African Republic searching for precious metal. There, he meets Cali Stone, a field researcher for the CDC who is investigating why a certain village suffers from one of the highest rates of cancer in the world-a fact that intrigues Mercer. Once back in the states, Mercer's search for answers leads him to a long-lost safe and a cryptic note inside that may reveal a three thousand year-old deception...
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Rated by buyers 
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If you like reading Clive you will really like this book. It takes Cussler to the subsequent level
Rated by buyers -
Okay so at age 46 i have read and continue to read lots of books. As a college graduate i am impressed with the writing skills of this author. He not only makes it hard to put down, he literally makes me carry the book around with me looking for a few spare moments. I anxiously await for each of his new books and I own every single book he has written.
In my humble opinion he is one of the top 5 writers in the world.
Rated by buyers 
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This was an ok book. I purchased this after reading "Pandora's Curse" which I thought was a great book. That book is definitely better then this one. It had more adventure, more characters to care about, and a better storyline. This is still an pretty ok book, but if you are looking for a really engaging adventure/mystery book, pick another one of his!
Rated by buyers -
Consider this - there are literally hundreds of adventure writers out there today, churning out all manner of action novels. The gambit runs from the terrible to the excellent.
Sadly, I've found that most adventure novels fall into the former category. There are few adventure writers out there who can tell a good story and keep the action flowing, and keep me interested.
I'm of the mind that I can't, in a novel, just have mindless action. I don't mind that in movies, as I am only looking to be entertained for a couple of hours at best. A novel will take me typically six or more hours to read.
My mind needs to be entertained. The only way an author can manage to do that is by creating interesting characters, having these characters travel to exotic locations, and deal with life or death situations.
Thus, the reason that I love the series Outlanders (only those written by Mark Ellis, accept no substitutes).
Here we go again, I digress.
On top of that, I don't mind getting an education either. If a particular author writes a novel and takes time to do the research, and I actually learn something from it, then it makes the experience all that much better. So, novels that deal with mythology or historical fact are of great interest to me.
Even if it's pure fiction, pure speculation, it enriches my already fertile imagination.
Over the years I've managed to find a few authors that have managed to write adventure novels that I have really enjoyed. Just to name a few of my favourite adventure writers - James Rollins, Preston and Child (Although most of their recent novels have been mysteries), Clive Cussler, and of course - Mark Ellis.
Recently I discovered a fairly new writer named Jack Du Brul, and picked up his latest novel Havoc.
The premise on the back caught my interest - a mining engineer along with a field researcher from the CDC meet up in Africa. She's trying to find out answers to why a particular tribe suffers from the highest rate of cancer in the world, and he's trying to help people escape from a mounting civil war.
The encounter leads to many questions and once back in the states, the engineer, Dr. Philip Mercer, discovers more questions than answers that lead him to a long lost safe that was connected not only to the crash of the Hindenburg blimp, but to Albert Einstein as well.
In this novel we have all the elements of what is in my opinion, the perfect adventure novel.
1 - Interesting and likable characters. The characters are intelligent and experienced, and best of all - human. They have flaws to compliment their strengths.
2 - Location. This is the second most important aspect of a novel to me. I want to read about exotic locations, even if some of these spots turn out to be pestholes. Because of my imagination, if the description is well written, I can actually picture it in my mind.
3 - Mythology and history combined. This novel deals with Alexander the Great, Albert Einstein, Tesla, and events that took place during World War 2.
4 - It's well written! The novel was easy to read, and had more than enough action to satisfy me. There was plenty of description and character interaction, which is a must, but it was well balanced with some truly spectacular action sequences. Particularly a train wreck and the explosion of a boat in a harbour.
As I stated earlier, Mr. Du Brul's a recent addition to the vast family of adventure writers out there. I picked up his very first novel - Vulcan's forge, and found out that it was published in 1998.
For me to pick up another novel by an author that I'm unfamiliar with, when I'm barely half way through it, speaks volumes.
The only other authors that I've done that with recently were Jim Butcher (creator and author of the Dresden Files), and F. Paul Wilson (Repairman Jack and numerous other novels).
I really enjoyed the book that much!
And, it goes without saying that I am planning on buying more of his books as I can locate them.
5 out of 5
Rated by buyers -
A reader who picks up Havoc gets exactly what he pays for: larger-than-life hero with an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, badder-than-bad villains who stop at nothing to achieve their nefarious ends, mysterious third parties who lurk in the shadows between good and evil, transoceanic mayhem, doomsday weaponry, and a leggy broad. Who care what the plot is? It's the same in every book and--as many other reviewers have noted--it's the same no matter who the author is. But Havoc has a special quality that set it apart not only from the rest of the DuBrul oeuvre, but from the rest of the action-adventure genre as well. I was delighted at the overtly political nature of this book, and the way in which it depicts both the United States and American ideals as positive forces in the world. That the story should turn on a plot to disrupt the world's oil supplies by an entity other than the US government or a greedy US corporation is, sadly but nonetheless refreshingly, breathtaking in its originality. It's worth reading Havoc simply to indulge in the rare pleasure of seeing America's enemies bashed instead of the other way around.
The character of Mercer, though, continues to vex me. At some point this poor soul either needs to come out of the closet or bring to closure the Oedipal issues left unresolved when his mother died an untimely death. This he-man is so shy around women, he can't even look them in the eye. And while Mercer spends much of Havoc moaning about his lost love Tisa (a woman in whose company he perhaps spent a total of maybe 48 non-consecutive hours), he also forgets the name of the Eritrean bombshell, Selome Nagast, he sniffed around in The Medusa Curse (2001). Some three years later he can only remember her as "Salome." Editing error? Perhaps, but totally in keeping with Mercer's overall attitude toward women. By the subsequent adventure, perhaps the winsome Tisa of 2003's Deep Fire Rising will have become "Tina" in Mercer's spotty memory.
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