Serpent (NUMA Files)

INTRODUCING KURT AUSTIN

From the classic novel Raise the Titanic! to his latest blockbuster Flood Tide, Clive Cussler and his fictional alter ego Dirk Pitt® have earned legions of fans worldwide. Now, the author of fifteen consecutive bestsellers unleashes a hero for the next millennium in an electrifying new series of unrelenting action and edge-of-your-seat thrills.

On the bottom of the icy sea off Nantucket lies the battered remains of the Italian luxury liner, Andrea Doria. But few know that within its bowels rests a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity — a treasure that now holds the key to a puzzle that is costing people their lives.

For Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) exploration team, the killing begins when he makes a daring rescue of a beautiful marine archaeologist. The target of a powerful Texas industrialist named Halcon, Nina Kirov was attacked off the coast of Morocco after her discovery of a carved stone head that may prove Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America. Soon Kurt and Nina embark on a deadly mission to uncover Halcon's masterful plan — an insidious scheme that would have him carve out a new nation from the southwest United States and Mexico, and ride to power on a wave of death and destruction.

With Austin's elite NUMA crew attacking the murderous conspiracy from different sides, an extraordinary truth emerges: that Columbus may have made a fifth, unknown voyage to America in search of a magnificent treasure. And that the silent, steel hull of the Andrea Doria not only holds the answer to what the explorer may have found — but the fate of the United States itself.

Cussler unleashes a new hero for the millennium--Kurt Austin of NUMA, the National Underwater Marine Agency. Challenged by villains and mind-boggling mysteries, the NUMA exploration team must act with Dirk Pitt-like intelligence and panache in order to save the world.

Clive Cussler is acclaimed worldwide as the Grandmaster of Adventure. He got his start in advertising, first as an award-winning copy writer, and then as creative director for two of the nation's largest agencies. His initial foray into fiction was in 1973, when he wrote his first Dirk Pitt® novel.

Since then he has continued to write Dirk Pitt® adventures while living a life that nearly parallels that of his action hero. Like Pitt, Cussler enjoys discovering and collecting things of historical significance. With NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency, a non profit group begun by Cussler) he has had an amazing record of finding over 60 shipwrecks, one of which was the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley. Cussler also has a renowned and extensive classic car collection, which features over 80 examples of custom coachwork.

Along with being Chairman of NUMA, he is also a fellow of the Explorers Club (which honored him with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration), the Royal Geographical Society and the American Society of Oceanographers. Married to Barbara Knight for 40 years, with three children and two grandchildren, he divides his time between the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of Arizona.