Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels often focus on one or more current geopolitical events. The latest one, Arctic Drift, is no different, centering on a worldwide financial crisis in 2011, coupled with global warming woes.
The villain this time around is a Canadian billionaire named Mitchell Goyette who is publicly admired for his green industry empire. However, covertly he is heavily invested in the dirty oil and gas industries.
Meanwhile, the United States faces an unprecedented financial crisis, made worse by the international threat of a trade boycott if the country does not find a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal burning power plants. Canada, with its vast resources of natural gas, may hold the key to saving its southern neighbor.
The American president in 2011, when the story takes place, plans to use natural gas from Canada to replace both coal and automobile gasoline, thereby killing two birds with one stone. The nation would make huge savings by cutting down on expensive oil imports, and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions by burning a cleaner fuel.
However, Goyette is in a perfect position to take advantage of the United State's desperate gamble, and he does so without conscience. To the Canadian public, Goyette is an environmental hero who invests millions in wind power and carbon sequestration. Unbeknownst to the masses, he's unscrupulously involved in every dirty industry that will make him more money, in particular the oil sands of Athabasca, Alberta, and the Melville natural gas fields of the Canadian Arctic, over which he has full control.
With one hand, Goyette makes a deal with the U.S. government to supply nearly limitless amounts of natural gas at market price from the Melville fields to help solve the American energy crisis, and indirectly the financial crisis. But with his other hand, he secretly strikes a deal with the Chinese to instead sell them all of the gas from Melville at 10% above market prices, with no intention of honoring his agreement with the American government.
(In reality, it seems a little farfetched that the American government would not have had an iron-clad, legally binding, written contract in place for a deal of this magnitude and importance. But it makes for a good story.)
Even so, the backstabbing of the United States as a business-partner is the least of Mitchell Goyette's shenanigans. He also bribes high ranking Canadian officials, creates toxic waste that kills wildlife and people, pays to have property stolen or vandalized, and for his opposition to be assassinated.
What Goyette does not count on, of course, is Dirk Pitt, the hero of 20 Clive Cussler books, including this latest installment. In the end, good prevails over evil.
Arctic Drift is an excellent and seamless co-authorship between Clive Cussler and his son, Dirk Cussler. It is hard to tell the penmanship of one apart from the other throughout the book. Whatever sections Dirk Cussler wrote, he did an excellent job of adopting Clive's inimitable style. (That's an intentional oxymoron.)
The book is an excellent and thrilling read; perhaps not cover-to-cover on-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement, as some of the older Dirk Pitt adventures. But the book makes up for it with a solid, steady and thoroughly enjoyable story that is brilliantly written, with thugs that are as sharp and capable as they are unscrupulous, and heroes as pure as Arctic ice. - 30328
The villain this time around is a Canadian billionaire named Mitchell Goyette who is publicly admired for his green industry empire. However, covertly he is heavily invested in the dirty oil and gas industries.
Meanwhile, the United States faces an unprecedented financial crisis, made worse by the international threat of a trade boycott if the country does not find a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal burning power plants. Canada, with its vast resources of natural gas, may hold the key to saving its southern neighbor.
The American president in 2011, when the story takes place, plans to use natural gas from Canada to replace both coal and automobile gasoline, thereby killing two birds with one stone. The nation would make huge savings by cutting down on expensive oil imports, and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions by burning a cleaner fuel.
However, Goyette is in a perfect position to take advantage of the United State's desperate gamble, and he does so without conscience. To the Canadian public, Goyette is an environmental hero who invests millions in wind power and carbon sequestration. Unbeknownst to the masses, he's unscrupulously involved in every dirty industry that will make him more money, in particular the oil sands of Athabasca, Alberta, and the Melville natural gas fields of the Canadian Arctic, over which he has full control.
With one hand, Goyette makes a deal with the U.S. government to supply nearly limitless amounts of natural gas at market price from the Melville fields to help solve the American energy crisis, and indirectly the financial crisis. But with his other hand, he secretly strikes a deal with the Chinese to instead sell them all of the gas from Melville at 10% above market prices, with no intention of honoring his agreement with the American government.
(In reality, it seems a little farfetched that the American government would not have had an iron-clad, legally binding, written contract in place for a deal of this magnitude and importance. But it makes for a good story.)
Even so, the backstabbing of the United States as a business-partner is the least of Mitchell Goyette's shenanigans. He also bribes high ranking Canadian officials, creates toxic waste that kills wildlife and people, pays to have property stolen or vandalized, and for his opposition to be assassinated.
What Goyette does not count on, of course, is Dirk Pitt, the hero of 20 Clive Cussler books, including this latest installment. In the end, good prevails over evil.
Arctic Drift is an excellent and seamless co-authorship between Clive Cussler and his son, Dirk Cussler. It is hard to tell the penmanship of one apart from the other throughout the book. Whatever sections Dirk Cussler wrote, he did an excellent job of adopting Clive's inimitable style. (That's an intentional oxymoron.)
The book is an excellent and thrilling read; perhaps not cover-to-cover on-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement, as some of the older Dirk Pitt adventures. But the book makes up for it with a solid, steady and thoroughly enjoyable story that is brilliantly written, with thugs that are as sharp and capable as they are unscrupulous, and heroes as pure as Arctic ice. - 30328
About the Author:
Britt Hellman resides in North Carolina with her husband and three children. She runs her own copywriting company from home. Clive Cussler has been one of her favorite writers since reading his Trojan Odyssey in 2003. She writes reviews like this one on Arctic Drift, by Clive and Dirk Cussler, for the fun of sharing that excitement.
