Iceberg ...by Clive Cussler

A novel can help us de-stress. Pick up a book where the good guys win in the end will put you in a better mood. And that's what I did. In the Dirk Pitt series, you have a all-round hero; suave, intelligent, brave, quick and seemingly invincible.

A yacht is spotted frozen on an iceberg and that sends Dirk onto another swashbuckling adventure, and there was one scene where he actually went swashbuckling; with dressed up pirates and their cutlasses. From an iceberg in the frigid Atlantic north to an island of geysers and aurora borealis, Iceland and even Disneyland, the good guys went on a chase to right a wrong. This novel brings us into a world of conspiracy and manouverings; where the wealthy think they own the world. They justify their ruthlessness by making the excuse that it's a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of mankind. Come to think of it, this actually is what we see and experience in real life too. Everything can be turned into an excuse.

Reading is fun cos the author gets to dictate the story line and you get to choose what type of story you want to read. Anyway, in this kind of novel, everything that is birthed in evil, the sins of the past eventually catches up. Good guys triumph in the end. Now wouldn't it be nice to see our cows unscandalised, our health taken care properly and how environment freed from the scourge of rare earth byproducts? Or that the denuded forests become forests again so that her natives can have their homes restored, or the so many leakages plugged so that our cost of living does not keep spiraling upwards. If only life is as simple to dictate like a novel.... But this is the real world. In the real world, bad guys do get away. They also become larger than life... on this earth. They wield influence with impunity. They grab, take, plunder, seize and do anything they fancy because they can, and they know it. Empires rise... and they fall. One way or the other, the fall usually has something to do with greed.

Anyway, the book is a good way to escape momentarily into a world good triumph over evil in the end, where the good rises from a great deal of bruising to deal the final blow to an evil plot. The world is safe once more. 8) The hero is magnanimous in the end. Good guy with a great heart. And oh ya! He gets to go back into the arms a great gal too. LOL! Book 4 but though the heart was momentarily lifted, the eyes took a 'beating' from staring too long at the screen. Still, I'd say this is an enjoyable read...