The latest Oregon Files thriller opens in the late 1820s, with a secret mission to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from exile, using, of all things, a submarine. There's a shocking twist, and then we flash forward to the present day. A bank robbery during the Monaco Grand Prix has rendered the mysterious Corporation nearly penniless; its leader, Juan Cabrillo, hooks up with a former CIA colleague to find the culprits. Soon Cabrillo realizes that the robbery was merely the first step in an elaborate scheme to destroy the world's economic stability and that the key to stopping the villains lies deep in the past. The novels in the Oregon Files aren't known for their finesse. Here, as in other installments, the writing, the story, and the characters are all a bit over the top, with action taking a decided precedence over character nuance or subtle plotting. This is a popular series, though, and loyal fans, content with the formula, will find nothing to complain about. Newcomers, however, might wonder what the fuss is about.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist

Cussler (Piranha, 2015, etc.) charges co-author Morrison with chronicling another rollicking Juan Cabrillo adventure. Disgruntled Ukrainian navy captain Sergey Golov has pirated Achilles, the private yacht of Russian mega-billionaire Maxim Antonovich. Golov's accomplice is his daughter, Ivana, a computer whiz. She's also the infamous hacker ShadowFoe, which means she has the keyboard savvy to warp 30 billion euros into secret foreign accounts and then stall pursuit by uploading a virus to computers controlling the European electric power grid. Ivana's virus is unbreakable. It's based on math formulas theorized by 19th-century genius Alexei Polichev, whose papers were purloined during Napoleon's Russian campaign. Daddy Golov will find and destroy Polichev's notes while Ivana infects the network. First, she steals a few million from Credit Condamine. Bad choice. That's the Oregon crew's bank. Newbies get a prcis on Cabrillo and his privatized CIA-like company and its floating headquarters, Oregon, a cutting-edge warship disguised as a tramp steamer. However, Achilles has been equipped with a railgun and a laser defense weapon by the same Vladivostok shipyard. Sea battles, anyone? Wait! Cabrillo must first foil the Saharan Islamic Caliphate's nuclear ambitions. Then it's nefarious deeds and heroic derring-do from the Monaco Grand Prix to Malta, Germany, Lithuania, Holland, and the Baltic. The exotic weapons-driven, more-threads-than-a-sweater narrative explodes with action, dead bodies hither and yon, with Cabrillo making enough skin-of-the-teeth escapes that he'll need to visit his dentist. The cast is comprised of one-size-fits-all stalwart or malevolent characters, and the locations are anchored by spare descriptions of landmarks, but when there's "only ten days to prevent the world from suffering a disastrous financial meltdown," the Oregon's ready to rescue. The Cussler conglomerate holds the patent on the Don't analyze, turn the page! manly action adventure. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A high level of tolerance for implausibility is required to enjoy bestseller Cussler's high-octane 11th Oregon Files adventure (after 2015's Piranha), the second in the series to be coauthored by Morrison. Juan Cabrillo runs the Corporation, an off-the-books U.S. government intelligence operation, based on the Oregon, a super-ship fitted with "revolutionary new magnetohydrodynamic engines" and an array of powerful weapons. The Oregon also features the amenities of a luxury liner, including an Olympic-sized swimming pool, chefs "trained at the Cordon Bleu," and a Navy-trained chief medical officer whose "lab coat remained spotless as it draped over her voluptuous curves." The Corporation is facing an unprecedented challenge after someone who hacked into a Monaco bank's systems threatens to plunge the European economy into chaos. The scheme is somehow connected with the search for "Napoleon's lost Russian treasure using a diary the emperor left behind after he was supposedly kidnapped from exile without anyone realizing it"; even the characters acknowledge that the premise is bizarre. The authors keep things moving at a fast pace, but there's nothing in this outing that genre fans haven't seen before. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.