Well, when a book has cover art that shows a steam locomotive settling to the bottom of a lake in Montana, you know there’s at least something interesting going on.
This is Clive Cussler’s first departure in a long time from the long-running series of Dirk Pitt and NUMA novels. Still, it has many of the same trademarks - a dashing, rich hero and lovely ladies, good and evil, and the inevitable high-speed runs in various motorized vehicles. Set in 1906, though, high-speed means steam locomotives.
Trains are very central to the whole story, so if you’re looking for a fun summer read (400 fast pages) or you’ve got any airplane travel planned, you might want to pick this one up. It’s relatively new, so you probably want to check the library before shelling out hardcover prices. Paperback eventually, but probably not until the fall.
Great book. I liked the western flavor as well as the earthquake interpretation. There was an earlier Dirk Pitt book with a ghost train. Just re-read that, great story as well.
For anyone interested in turn of the century (20th) railroading, I highly recommend getting a copy of “The Big Ivy,” by James McCague, considered by some to be the best railroading novel ever. It’s long out of print, even the Ace Books paperback, but when my old copy, from the '60s, just plain wore out, I bought a new copy of it from a vendor at www.abebooks.com. The shipping is 3-4 times the price of the used paperback (what shipping isn’t, these days?), but it’s a rousing story of railroading in the days when men were men and women were women (and men were glad of it!). Its only flaw (one!) is the perpetuation of the old “Crane With a Broken Neck Service Letter” myth, but I’ve seen that in non-fiction books as well.
McCague also did another novel, “Fiddle Hill,” about the changeover from steam to Diesel, that’s not as chockful of railroading lore, and I don’t know if it’s ever been released in paperback (someone gave me a hardcover copy). I also enjoy “Iron Bronc,” by Wil Ermine, which is a sort of turn of the century western/RR novel. Its only flaw is that Ermine, like a lot of writers, didn’t choose a good “expert” and therefore had the Wolf River & Northern shortline being operated with a pair of “ancient 4-4-2 Atlantics”–and this in the early years of the 20th century! I went so far as to use white-out and letter in “4-4-0 Americans” in my original copy, but didn’t bother when it wore out and I got another copy from ABE (American Book Exchange). Ripping good yarn!
Mild warning: if you come across a copy of “Breakheart Pass,” by Alistair MacLean, be aware that he used all British railroading terms in the book–and the story wouldn’t even work in the USA’s Old West. Not bad, but try to ignore a “Brake Van” at the rear of a passenger train that
Thanks for the heads up–I’ve read a couple of Cussler novels and he’s always good for an entertaining read. Seems he’s always managed to sneak a train into his plots (“Sahara”) and have a lot of fun with them. I’ll pick this one up.
I’ll second “Whispering Smith” as a good RR-flavored western novel. The movie isn’t bad, either. Paramount used all of that old Virginia & Truckee old-time equipment that they originally bought for “Union Pacific”, only this time in really vivid Technicolor.