Rumors of lost Egyptian treasure spark high adventure in this 17th in the NUMA series featuring oceanographer Kurt Austin and his crew (Sea of Greed, 2018, etc.).Over 3,000 years ago, grave robbers sail away with loot from a pharaoh's tomb. In 1927, Jake Melbourne and his plane disappear in his attempt at a trans-Atlantic flight. In the present day, arms merchants known as the Bloodstone Group have taken to stealing antiquities. They are looking for a "treasure both vast and glorious" that hieroglyphics say was shipped down the Nile and out of Egypt, perhaps even west across the Atlantic. (Holy scurvy! That must've been a lot of hard rowing!) The criminals are known to MI5 as "very dangerous people" and "merchants selling death." Perfectly willing to kill everyone in their way, they are aided by mechanical crows and Fydor and Xandra, nasty sibling assassins jointly called the Toymaker. Such are the foes faced by Austin and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Of course, Austin has no interest in profit; he will gladly leave the ancient riches wherever they are. Action arrives early and often, and the failed pre-Lindbergh flight fits in neatly. Cussler and Brown concoct a nifty plot with disparate, sometimes over-the-top twists that will make even hardcore adventure fans say "Wow!" Expect claustrophobic gunfights, aerial combat, a life-threatening flood, messages from the dead, coffins of goldand a vintage classic car, because why not? "We're going to steal the greatest deposit of Egyptian treasure the world has ever known," brags the evil mastermind. But he'll have to climb over the series hero's dead body first, whichno plot spoiler hereain't gonna happen.This is fast-paced, nonstop fun. Cussler fans will gobble it up. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Here's another formulaic NUMA Files novel from the Cussler pop-fiction factory. As usual, the story begins deep in the past--in ancient Egypt this time; the tombs of the pharaohs are looted. Skipping forward to the 1920s, an American flier vanishes during an ambitious solo flight. And in the modern day, a fishing trawler goes down off the coast of Scotland, its priceless cargo rescued at the last second by NUMA chief Kurt Austin, who almost immediately finds himself working with Britain's MI5 to bring down a powerful group of arms dealers who have big plans for the rescued relic. The NUMA novels are essentially extended chase scenes: Kurt and his team race to find someone or something, or someone else is chasing Kurt and his team, or Kurt and the baddies are both chasing the same thing. Readers know what they're signing on for, and, as long as Cussler and his cowriter of the moment hit their marks, the readers will be satisfied. But it might be nice if, once in a while, Cussler delivered a NUMA story that actually surprised us. Standard-issue adventure fare.

Bestseller Cussler's lively 17th NUMA Files novel (after 2018's Sea of Greed, also with Brown) finds Kurt Austin, the director of special projects for the U.S. government's National Underwater and Marine Agency, on the coast of Scotland, where he and sidekick Joe Zavala witness a trawler smashing against the rocks. Kurt and Joe rescue the crew and pull fragments of a stone tablet with Egyptian hieroglyphics from the sinking boat, along with a logbook from 1927 kept by a transatlantic pilot who crashed in Spain. Some murderous artifact smugglers, who belong to an organization called the Bloodstone Group, want these relics back. When interpreted by a British professor, these discoveries lead Kurt and Joe and their new partner, MI5 agent Morgan Manning, on a chase across Europe to America, where they end up in a treasure-filled cave in the Grand Canyon with Bloodstone agents hot on their heels. The twist ending fits neatly into the Cussler canon. Series fans will be pleased. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency. (Mar.)