The novel, “Pacific Vortex” was written by
Clive Cussler in nineteen eighty-two. It was the first of Cussler’s many novels based upon his heroic character,
Dirk Pitt. In this novel, Cussler places his hero in a story of adventure, and a race against time as the main characters, Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino must
salvage a
nuclear submarine that has just been found after being missing for over six months.
In the beginning of the story, Pitt finds a message capsule from the missing submarine known as the Starbuck. In the message capsule, Pitt finds the horrific story of the last days of the Starbuck. The message has so many terrible things in it, but it also has many inconsistencies. Pitt takes the message to a military base were he meets a very disgruntled old admiral named Hunter. Hunter proves to Pitt that the message is a fake, but that it does contain the location of the missing sub. Hunter then half asks, half forces Pitt to join a group who is in the process of finding the Starbuck.
Naturally the hero finds the sub almost immediately and finds a way to enter the sub, even though it is on the ocean floor. Once inside the sub, Pitt is amazed that the sub is still working as if it were new. Inside the Starbuck, Pitt finds the last living member of the Starbuck’s crew who has been stranded on the ocean floor for six months and is now totally out of his mind. Also, Pitt is attacked by two men on the sub who use strange guns. Pitt uses his mind to outsmart the two men and escapes from the Starbuck with the last crewmember.
With the information that Pitt can get from the Starbuck crewmember, and the information his team can find on the sub, Pitt soon discovers that the Starbuck and many other vessels in the area were not victims of the sea. Instead these ships were sunk by a group of men who planned to use the Starbuck’s missiles for themselves. This group of men attacks Pitt after he discovers their operation. Pitt finds the leader to be a giant of a man named Delphi. This operation of ship sinkers has a secret base that is actually in the caves of an underwater mountain.
Pitt now finds himself in a race against time to escape this sea mountain before it explodes. Pitt must now save his long time friend Al Giordino, and the both of them must defeat the crime boss Delphi while trying to find a way to take the sunken Starbuck to the surface in a desperate attempt to avoid a nuclear blast that will destroy the mountain forever. All this makes for an exiting and suspenseful conclusion that is too good to give away. Reading the novel is the only way to find out.