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Title: The novel with the most cliches wins...
Review: I found this book to be horribly unrealistic in every aspect. The dialog was corny, without an original phrase used by any character. I could perhaps forgive one character who is sarcastic and teasing all the time, but nearly every dialog exchange was full of cliches and sarcasm. And when the characters were being serious, they were melodramatic. There were too many coincidences which inplausibly dragged the plot along. Finally, the backdrop against the legend of Imperial Russia and the modern corrupt Russian businessman-mafioso was just the icing on the cake. I'm not a literature nazi, and I'm game for a pulp fiction read every now and then. But I should be able to enjoy a story without uttering "oh, puh-lease" every few minutes. I haven't read any other Cussler novels, but I'm not inclined to after this one. For a better read in this genre, try Ken Follet.
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