Review: Plague Ship - Clive Cussler

Plague Ship - Clive Cussler
Pages: 528

For four novels, Clive Cussler has charted the exploits of the Oregon, a covert ship completely dilapidated on the outside but, on the inside, packed with sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering equipment. Captained by the rakish, one-legged Juan Cabrillo and manned by a crew of former military and spy personnel, it is a private enterprise, available for any government agency that can afford it-and now Cussler sends the Oregon on its most extraordinary mission yet. The crew has just completed a top secret mission against Iran in the Persian Gulf, when they come across a cruise ship adrift in the sea. Hundreds of bodies litter its deck, and as Cabrillo tries to determine what happened, explosions rack the length of the ship. Barely able to escape with his own life and that of the liner's sole survivor, Cabrillo finds himself plunged into a mystery as intricate-and as perilous-as any he has ever known, and pitted against a cult with monstrously lethal plans for the human race ... plans he may already be too late to stop. -goodreads.com

When I started reading Plague Ship, I wondered how Clive Cussler could wrap an entire book around the cruise ship event. I mean, the ship exploded and sank, and only one person survived. Where's the fun in that, and how could you write a book around it? It was said and done! Yet I gave Plague Ship a chance, and I ended up liking it a lot.

The book actually started off kind of odd. It began in WWII Northern Scandinavia. A German plane was all of a sudden attacked by Allied forces, and I was lost. How did this relate to the ship and everything else...60 years in the future? As I kept reading, I forgot about the introductory chapter, but it was brought up near the end and surprisingly relevant, so I was satisfied.

The discovery of the cruise liner sets off a whole chain reaction that gets the whole plot moving. Granted she does sink, but not before the Oregon finds her and gets vital information and the sole survivor. The title and cover focus on the ship, when in reality the book is about what happened on her, and to her passengers. It ends up being an adventure stretching from the Philippines to the Mediterranean, and many places in between.

The plot sounds kind of old, big problem, special team assigned to fix it. However, the crew of the Oregon is far from any ordinary special ops team. There were plenty of characters for everyone to get to like. Juan Cabrillo, Max Hanley, and Linda Ross were technically the 'superiors', but everyone got along like one big family. From Mark Murphy, a stereotypical twenty something who just happens to be a genius, to George 'Gomez' Adams, a snarky helicopter pilot, all the way out to Kevin Nixon, who can disguise you to the point that you don't recognize yourself, each of the members of the Oregon's crew is unique and fun.

With such a large cast of characters, one is bound to get mini plots and have to keep up with things, but with each of the characters being so different, I found it easy to keep track of them once I got going.

Clive Cussler is an author I've just started getting into. I've read a couple of his books before, but this one sounded really interesting. Plus, the premise sounded just perfect for me. Before Plague Ship, I had never heard of the Oregon Files. The book was much better than I first thought, and I'm looking forward to more of the Oregon Files.


Rating: 8.5/10


Catch you soon,

Harry