Zero Hour

This novel starts out with a bang.  Kurt Anderson works for NUMA, National Underwater and Marine Agency. He is in Sydney, Australia for a conference and some R and R when he finds himself in the middle of a gun fight, snipers in a helicopter.  He manages to divert the helicopter unfortunately it gets diverted into the Sidney Opera house.  Luckily no one was inside.  But things were a mess.

There is this guy Theros who is a mad scientist.  I mean not only is he mentally unbalanced, he is mad as heck at all the countries that would not support his research and he is out for revenge.  He is working on the creation of zero point energy which seems to be as unstable as him.  So instead of harnessing this energy for the greater good he is planning on sending messages to all those who have done him wrong by focusing this energy to create earthquakes that will affect the movement of the tectonic plates.

It just so happens that my college age daughter took Geology this past summer and so I know a little bit about these plates.  Here is a little background. The theory states that Earth's outermost layer, the lithosphere, is broken into 7 large, rigid pieces called plates: the African, North American, South American, Eurasian, Australian, Antarctic, and Pacific plates. Several minor plates also exist, including the Arabian, Nazca, and Philippines plates. The plates are all moving in different directions and at different speeds (from 2 cm to 10 cm per year--about the speed at which your fingernails grow) in relationship to each other. They sometimes crash together, pull apart, or sideswipe each other. The place where the two plates meet is called a plate boundary.  Theros seems to be aiming for the one under Australia. 

For those of you familiar with Clive Cussler, you all know the character of Dirk Pitt.  I love that character.  Kurt does not disappoint so try this one.  It is a very quick read.