As a child, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone was told his father died in a submarine disaster in the North Atlantic, but now he wants the full story and asks his ex-boss, Stephanie Nelle, to secure the military files. What he learns stuns him: His father's sub was a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica.
But Malone isn't the only one after the truth.
Twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk are fighting for the fortune their mother has promised to whichever of them discovers what really became of their father-who died on the same submarine that Malone's father captained.
The sisters know something Malone doesn't: Inspired by strange clues discovered in Charlemagne's tomb, the Nazis explored Antarctica before the Americans, as long ago as 1938. Now Malone discovers that cryptic journals penned in "the language of heaven," inscrutable...

In his fourth adventure, Copenhagen bookseller (and former U.S. government agent) Cotton Malone seeks the truth about his father, the commander of an experimental submarine that vanished in 1971. His quest makes him a target of the murderously ambitious Admiral Ramsey, an architect of the coverup, as well as an unwilling competitor and ally to twin German heiresses also looking for information about the fate of the submarine and its mission to Antarctica to search for an ancient civilization. Scott Brick's reading is perfectly acceptable, if not exceptional, and he keeps the many action sequences well paced. A reasonable attempt is made to differentiate between the genders of the characters, but Brick's accents (particularly the German) skirt the thin line between believable and comedic. His reading doesn't detract from the text of this solidly exciting, over-the-top thriller, but it doesn't enhance it, either. A Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 29). (Dec.)

Categories:

• Science Fiction & Fantasy
  
  
  • Science Fiction
    • Crime & Mystery