Fire Ice Clive Cussler Book Review

Cussler, Clive. Fire Ice, Penguin Putnam Incorporated, 434 p.n Fire Ice, by Clive Cussler, is a fictional story based on an underwater marine agency called NUMA. The protagonist, Kurt Austin, is a scientist for the agency who works on the Argo. One morning, a media news crew is scheduled to interview them at their boat. When the news crew does not arrive, Austin takes his rag-tag airplane to locate them. He finds them with their ship turned over and crew nowhere to be found. Further down he sees a group of armed Russian horsemen who damage his plane with their weapons, and force it to come to the ground. With such a dangerous situation, NUMA and Austin are taken into an adventurous conflict of good and evil as they try to uncover the sinister workings. Even through a series of former conflicts, a Russian commander known as Ivan helps Kurt Austin as he struggles to solve the mystery. The man behind the ravaging attack is a crazed Russian madman named Razov. Razov falsely believes he is a descendant of a great Russian leader and plans to take over the current Russian government. The madman leads a large and almost mafia family as they plan to literally deface the earth. With Razov’s great wealth, he is developing a methane hydrate called fire ice to increase the effects of global warming and destroy America. But, when Razov kidnaps a rich lord named Dodson and takes his royal crown, Austin intervenes. After a brief chase, he finds Razov sinking deep into a pool of heavy quicksand by the weight of the crown which he refuses to let go. There he rests in peace. n I believe Fire Ice is the most adventurous novel of the NUMA books which I have read. Kurt Austin, as always, is displayed as a very likeable, down to earth, and courageous hero. Although Austin is shown as very likeable, it is hard to pull out any shortcomings from his adventures or personality. The plot becomes very improbable when the idea of manmade tsunamis is introduced into the book, but Cussler pulls it all together to make it seem near believable. Unlike White Death, Cussler does a good job of introducing every character and keeping the story flowing from one idea to the next. I believe the story overall is very exiting and I recommend this to any readers who prefer action and adventure novels.n