This exciting story starts in smaller locations and builds up to much larger ones, as NUMA investigates a mysteriously stricken trawler and finds a lead to a giant airship. CLIVE CUSSLER’S CONDOR’S FURY is a bit of a mouthful for a title, but the grand themes, ocean-going setting and diving scenes make this thriller worthy of the late Clive Cussler.

A wallowing trawler with seemingly no crew attracts the attention of a US Naval vessel. Looking for anyone in need of rescue, the boarding party finds some dead crewmen and some alive, paranoid, hiding men. They can’t really say what scared them, but lights in the sky come into it. Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala of NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, team up with Commander Wells to investigate. Their efforts led to reports of odd sightings, perhaps drones, underwater exploration of a sunken vessel, and the work soon attracted the attention of gunmen.

Rebels in Cuba, including a self-interested man called Colon, plan to use a peaceful enterprise for bad purposes. The discovery of a large amount of helium in their country means the Cubans can supply a new airship firm. Brazilian inventor and enterprise CEO Stefano Solari is keen to do away with travel pinch-points like the Panama Canal. The story shows us a Naval ship passing through the canal, and another gorgeous setting is Rio. The book is almost as good as a vacation. Not for long, of course.

Giant airships with names like Condor and Eagle are Stefano Solari’s idea for super cargo carriers and passenger liners combined. Once the navy forges a link between the Ostrom Airship Corporation and the nefarious Cuban thugs, life gets even more interesting.  

This thriller by Graham Brown is definitely one for those who enjoy engineering, the bigger and more advanced the better. I was fascinated while reading about a super-sized dry dock, which floats out like a powered oil rig and can ‘swallow’ a large boat whole for mending while at sea. Since it’s this kind of book, the author is constantly finding ways to cause havoc and damage aboard his massive structures. The NUMA divers can’t enter a wreck without something going wrong, and the same applies to a luxury cruise aboard the airship. The plot – it must be said – resembles a James Bond story, but there are a limited number of ways to make terrorist use of these structures, and we get a lot of teamwork, with determined women as well as men. CLIVE CUSSLER’S CONDOR’S FURY rewards reading and provides an almost cinematic experience.