Skeleton Coast

Skeleton Coast is exciting and worth Hollywoods effort to film. It also informs the reader about various African countries continuous efforts to self-govern. The main plot centers on the efforts of radical environmentalists to wake up the world to the dangers presented by fossil fuels. The crew of the disguised super-ship, Oregon, fight the eco-terrorists to help several African nations as well as the USA.

I can read a Oregon file book any day. This one is no exception. Characters are like able and the situations impossible and that’s the reason we read these! Story line was predictable and the outcome inevitable. Having roots in Southern Africa I would think that the crew would drink Tafel lager and not Tusker though!

Looking for an easy read action packed novel, you’d like this but if you need some thought provoking entertainment, this isn’t quite it. Touches on the environmental issue etc. but not in such a way to start a revolution.

I have read a lot of Cussler’s Oregon Files books. This is not one of the better stories. Moved a little slow, a lot of the sub-plots didn’t make sense. The main plot was also a little weirder than normal.

This review is for the Berkley trade paperback edition, October 2006, 373 pages. SKELETON COAST was on the USA Today’s Top 150 Best-Selling books list for nine weeks in October and November 2006, reaching a peak position to 21. Clive Cussler has 24 novels on this best-seller list.

The story begins in 1896 with the theft of a fortune in uncut diamonds from the Herero king in then the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana). After a treacherous escape across the Kalahari Desert, the five thieves, all Brits, reach the HMS Rove, their chartered escape vessel. But as soon as they board, they are trapped by a violent storm and their pursuers attack. Officially, the HMS Rove is lost a sea, but the story narrator reveals it is buried eight miles inland in the desert.

In the present day, the story moves to a laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland and a conversation between the owner and a female technician about making sea water gooey. Then it jumps to a scummy looking freighter in the Congo River. The crew is trading weapons for uncut diamonds with a rebel group. Beneath the crud the freighter is actually the Oregon, Captain Juan Cabrillo’s technological marvel operated by ex CIA agents and other mercenaries working for a for profit corporation. After escaping a harrowing fire fight with the rebels, the Oregon saves a damsel in distress who happens to be looking for the HMS Rove.

And so it goes. The Oregon faces one challenge after another, each one more tortuous than the previous and requiring the employment of the Oregon’s state-of-the-art firepower, helicopter, lifeboat cum hydroplane and submersibles. The feats and skills of the Oregon’s crew are nothing less than unbelievable, the coincidences incredible and Captain Cabrillo’s ability to invent complex plans within minutes astounding. This is a typical over-the-top Cussler action-thriller. Unfortunately, it is heavy on tell rather than show and the non-stop action is frequently interrupted by speeches we would rather skip.

I was willing to bet the previous book in this series, “Dark Watch” was a fluke and somebody, somewhere at sometime was going to find a way to screw up the next one. I stand corrected and as well, pleasantly surprised. “Skeleton Coast” puts The Corporation up against some eco-terrorists, a rebel army in the Congo and a egomaniac bent on getting his point across to the world, even if it harms the environment. Cussler also went back to the historical prologue that are a staple of most of his books–it was absent in “Dark Watch”. Needless to say the prologue has a thread in the story and it is pretty interesting. Cussler and Du Brul are an excellent writing team, now I am off to read me some “Plague Ship.”

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