Celtic Empire

Three violent incidents open this Dirk Pitt adventure: a team of United Nations scientists is murdered in El Salvador, two vessels collide with deadly results in the waterways off Detroit, and tomb raiders strike an archaeological dig beside the Nile. Nothing obvious ties them together. The connection may lie three thousand years in the past, in the story of an Egyptian princess who had to flee the armies of her own father.

Dirk Pitt, director of NUMA, expects a routine investigation in South America. Instead he is pulled into an international puzzle that carries him around the world and puts at risk the people closest to him, his family above all. With his longtime partner Al Giordino, he follows a trail to Scotland, where an unexplained disease is spreading and a secretive bioremediation company may be responsible.

Pitt's son and daughter, meanwhile, have found something in an Egyptian tomb that has made them targets, and killers are now hunting them. As the separate threads draw tighter, they converge on the rocky isles of Ireland. There the Pitts must work out the secret of an ancient enigma, one with the power to change the future of mankind. It is a fast-moving entry in Clive Cussler's long-running series, mixing archaeology, ocean exploration and modern conspiracy.