The Silent Sea (2010)

The seventh Oregon Files adventure thriller begins on December 7, 1941, when five boys encounter tragedy while looking for buried pirate treasure on a small island off the coast of Washington State. Flash-forward to today: Juan Cabrillo, captain of the Oregon (a high-tech vessel posing as a tramp freighter), is in Argentina, trying to recover a downed NASA satellite. Well, don’t you know, Juan stumbles on something he totally didn’t expect to find, and soon he’s chasing after the secrets of an ancient curse that might still be causing trouble. Fast-paced and a lot of fun, the latest Cabrillo novel delivers the wallop Cussler’s fans have come to expect. Cabrillo himself—he shares his name with a sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer, by the way—makes a fine protagonist, sharp-witted and two-fisted. Considering the Oregon Files novels involve action, exploration, and high-tech gadgetry, it’s surprising no one has turned them into movies yet. The prolific Cussler, who, like James Patterson, now employs coauthors (Du Brul in this case), is often accused of writing by the numbers, but this time those numbers add up to entertaining fare for high-adventure fans.