Zero hour (Penguin Books)

Zero Hour is the latest in a string of nerve-shredding NUMA Files novels from Clive Cussler. A burning helicopter crashes into Sydney Opera House and Kurt Austin is flung headlong into a race to avert global catastrophe...Attempting to save a man in a speedboat from a sniper swooping in aby helicopter, Kurt Austin lands himself in trouble with the Australian secret service.

Though he gives them their only clue - 'Tartarus', the last word of a dying man - Kurt is brusquely warned off. Intrigued and never one to ignore a mystery he is soon on the trail of a crazed scientist hellbent on unleashing a deadly destructive force: machines capable of triggering earthquakes.

Now Austin must assemble the NUMA team. Their mission? To find and stop this madman before he tears the world apart. Clive Cussler, author of recent New York Times bestsellers The Tombs, Poseidon's Arrow and The Striker, brings us Zero Hour, the new adrenalin-soaked doomsday masterpiece in the Numa Files series.

Praise for Clive Cussler: "Clive Cussler is hard to beat". (Daily Mail). "The guy I read". (Tom Clancy). "The adventure king". (Daily Express).Clive Cussler is the author or co-author of a great number of international bestsellers, including the famous Dirk Pitt[registered] adventures, such as Crescent Dawn; the NUMA[registered] Files adventures, most recently The Storm; the Oregon Files, such as The Silent Sea; and the Isaac Bell historical thrillers, which began with The Chase, and the recent Fargo adventures.

He lives in Arizona.