The Navigator (The Numa Files) [Hardcover]

Clive Cussler (Author), Paul Kemprecos (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Numa Files | Publication Date: June 5, 2007

Years ago, an ancient Phoenician statue known as the Navigator was stolen from the Baghdad Museum, and there are men who would do anything to get their hands on it. Their first victim is a crooked antiquities dealer, murdered in cold blood. Their second very nearly is a UN investigator who, were it not for the timely assistance of Austin and Zavala, would now be at the bottom of a watery grave.

What's so special about this statue? Austin wonders. The search for answers will take the NUMA team on an astonishing odyssey through time and space, one that encompasses no less than the lost treasures of King Solomon, a mysterious packet of documents personally encoded by Thomas Jefferson, and a top secret scientific project that could change the world forever.

And that's before the surprises really begin . . .

Rich with all the hair-raising action and endless invention that have become Cussler's hallmarks, The Navigator is Clive's best yet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of action-hero Kurt Austin of the National Underwater and Maritime Agency expect imaginative plotting, but it never comes down the chute in this seventh NUMA Files novel from bestseller Cussler and Shamus-winner Kemprecos (after Polar Shift). Austin and his team are hunting icebergs when they chance upon a pirate raid aimed at stealing a priceless Phoenician antiquity launched by a stereotypical megalomaniacal villain, Viktor Baltazar, who believes he's a descendant of King Solomon. Baltazar and Austin joust continually (once, literally!) over the antique, which may be connected to the lost ark of the covenant, Thomas Jefferson and the suspicious death of Meriwether Lewis. Sequences including the attempted human sacrifice of the requisite gorgeous female U.N. investigator are all too predictable, and the writing ("The Filipino's lips curved like slices of liverwurst in a frying pan") is often less than Cussler's best. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Calculations seem to point to this being popular adventure novelist Cussler's thirty-fourth book, the seventh one written in collaboration with Kemprecos and the seventh one to chronicle the adventures of the NUMA Special Assignments Team. In his latest romp, Cussler is concerned with an ancient Phoenician statue called the Navigator, which was stolen from a Baghdad museum in 900 BCE. The compelling, well-organized plot--taken from a template that works--includes such disparate but ultimately workable elements as a foiled hijacking, a secret scientific project, pirates, a beautiful woman ("Her gown's scooped neckline displayed a decolletage that hovered between proper and sexy"), and the heroic machinations of the NUMA sleuths. Without exactly revealing the ending, suffice it to say--or, actually, suffice it to pose the question, Has the NUMA team ever failed in its quest for justice? Read it to make certain you've answered the question correctly. Cussler's multitude of fans will undoubtedly eat up this new novel just as they have previous ones. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399154191
• ISBN-13: 978-0399154195
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #691,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice escape into an action-adventure tale as only Cussler can tell it..., September 1, 2007

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Navigator (The Numa Files) (Hardcover)

Seems like a number of my library "recreational reads" came in at once, so I've had some down time from my normal fare of reading material. I finally made it to the top of the hold list for The Navigator by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos. If you're in the mood for a fast-moving action adventure novel, it works pretty well...

The main story revolves around a statue called The Navigator. It was stolen from the Iraqi national museum but was recovered with the aid of a UN official named Carina Mechadi. While on a ship bound for the US with the other recovered items, the statue is once again the center of attention when an armed group invades the ship, attempts to transport the statue off by helicopter, and sets the ship to collide with an oil drilling platform to hide the evidence. But Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala of NUMA are able to pull off a dramatic rescue, saving the ship, the statue, *and* Ms. Mechadi. The mystery of why someone would want the statue deepens as a tie is discovered between the statue, Thomas Jefferson, and the ancient Phoenicians. When the statue is once again stolen and Carina once again kidnapped, Austin's full attention is focused on saving the damsel in distress one more time, as well as putting an end to the person behind it all.

Compared to Cussler's Dirk Pitt series, the Austin novel is much more sedate and comfortable. There's definitely enough action to keep you turning pages, but every chapter doesn't end with someone about to die and/or pull off a miraculous MacGyver-esque escape. The idea of Phoenicians being the first to visit North America isn't new in a Cussler novel (Serpent in 1999), but he does a nice job in putting together a Da Vinci-type mystery where people are willing to die to keep a secret.

If you're ready to kill off a few hours with a mental escape from reality, The Navigator should fit your needs well...

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thwarting the latest wealthy megalomaniac, October 7, 2007

By 

Cory D. Slipman (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Navigator (The Numa Files) (Hardcover)

Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos follow a previously successful formula twisting around history to create a fast based action adventure tale surrounding the actions of members of the fictitious National Underwater and Maritme Agency(NUMA).

Special Projects director Kurt Austin and his sidekick Joe Zavala find themselves in the midst of a mid oceanic hijacking. The booty is a bronze Phoenician statue known as The Navigator being transported under the guardianship of the alluring Carina Mechadi working for UNESCO. The statue was looted along with other antiquities from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion. Mechadi's mission was to recovered the purloined artifacts.

The Navigator happened to be the object of desire of industrialist Viktor Baltazar head of a large private mercenary cartel and mining empire. Baltazar who traced his roots back to the days of King Solomon believed that the statue gave clues to details of a pre-Columbian visit to the New World by the Phoenicians.

Tied in with these historical events were a recently and accidently discovered encrypted letter penned by Thomas Jefferson under the guise of the secretive Artichoke society. Analysis of the Jefferson papers detailed a letter from Meriweather Lewis of the famous Lewis & Clark expedition. The correspondence hinted at the existence of a Phoenician landing in the New World with a mission to hide a precious and sensitive item whose existence could change the fabric of society as postulated by King Solomon.

Baltazar desired the information that The Navigator contained to advance his own nefarious plans. Meanwhile Austin, Zavala and their minions along his Austin love interest Mechadi team up to deter Baltazar in a rollicking adventure that strains the boundaries of credulity. The plot was standard fare for Cussler and his ghost writers but the ending was a bit of a cop out. For stress free reading requiring very little mentation, "The Navigator" is right up your alley.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Austin's Action Just Keeps Getting Better, July 25, 2007

By 

Kara J. Jorges "Avid Reader" (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Navigator (The Numa Files) (Hardcover)

When American forces invaded Iraq the first time, the Baghdad Museum was looted of valuable treasures. UNESCO agent Carina Mechadi is on their trail, and jumps at the chance when wealthy businessman Viktor Baltazar offers to privately finance her search, asking only that she keep him informed of her progress. Carina crosses paths with our hero, Kurt Austin, quite literally when she recovers the most valuable of the museum's missing items and accompanies them on their containership voyage across the Atlantic to the Smithsonian. Kurt Austin and sidekick Joe Zavala had been in the same area of the North Atlantic known as Iceberg Alley, helping to rope in icebergs heading for oil rigs and tow them from harm's way, when Carina's ship, the Ocean Adventure, appears to be steaming directly for an oil rig. When Austin's derring-do puts him aboard, he finds the Ocean Adventure had been boarded by pirates in helicopters. Their one objective seemed to have been recovery of a statue of dubious value in Carina's collection called the Navigator. Austin stops the theft and rescues the ship, seeing Carina safely to Washington. Once there, the mystery deepens when Anthony Saxon, an ill-respected archaeologist and writer, joins forces with Austin and the gang. Someone wants the Navigator badly, for the statue contains an ancient Phoenician map supposedly leading to King Solomon's Mines and a controversial set of the Ten Commandments carved in gold. They aren't the only ones looking for the lost artifacts, and the other guys will stop at nothing to get there first.

I have only one complaint about this book, and that is its inability to resist the urge to oh-so-trendily cast doubt on stories of Biblical origin. The outrage has died down, and so has our interest in this type of subject matter, which is handled with little skill and no attempt at originality. That disappointing detail aside, this is a fast-paced, white-knuckle thrill ride as Kurt Austin and his friends unravel a centuries-old mystery, trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys, who naturally have sinister motives. Though the engaging Paul and Gamay Trout once again played disappointingly small roles and, sadly, maritime historian St. Julien Perlmutter sat this one out, it was nonetheless quite the page turner I found very difficult to put down.

With its seventh book, this series has obviously found its stride. With its Cussleresque abundance of corny similes and nonstop action woven into an intricate plot, combined with Kemprecos' warm, down-to-earth prose, it's hard to find action better than this smoothly-paced novel. Once again, you can't go wrong with a book with Cussler on the cover.