Book Review – Clive Cussler’s “Sahara”
Sahara is the eleventh book written by Clive Cussler in his main series of novels.
Although this is the next sequential book after Dragon, a few of Sahara‘s previous references point back to Treasure. The connections are mainly vague references, and it’s not really necessary to read both of those books before reading Sahara.
Sahara begins on April 2, 1865 as the Confederacy is about to lose the Civil War. Sitting at a dock on the James River in Richmond, Virginia, is the Texas, an ironclad warship about to depart on a secret mission. The Texas is loaded with Confederate gold, and just before it departs, a secret passenger is loaded onto the ship. If the ship’s mission is successful, then the Confederacy will be restored.
The Texas cruises down the James River and slips past the Union blockade. By the time that the Union sailors recognize the Confederate ship, it’s too late. The Confederate ship reaches the harbor and faces a line of Union ships blocking access to the Atlantic Ocean. The Texas comes under fire and is almost sunk until the ship’s mysterious passenger makes an appearance on the upper deck. When the Union sailors see the passenger they immediately stop firing. They cannot believe their eyes. The sailors can only watch as the Texas sails past the Union’s line of ships and reaches the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Fast forward to October 10, 1931.
Australia’s aviation ace Kitty Mannock is flying one final long-distance flight from London, England to Cape Town, South Africa when she experiences problems over the southwestern part of the Sahara. She was trying to follow the Trans-Sahara motor track when she became disoriented when flying through a sandstorm. Worse, the sandstorm damaged one of the cylinders in her Fairchild FC-2W’s engine. The aircraft is losing power and Kitty is forced to make an emergency landing before night arrives in the desert.
Kitty makes a smooth landing in the Sahara until the aircraft suddenly plunges into a small ravine. The impact seriously injures Kitty, and the woman is left to survive in the harsh and unforgiving elements of the world’s largest desert. Search parties attempt to find the missing woman when she’s reported as overdue, but no traces of Kitty Mannock or her aircraft are found.
Sahara‘s main story begins in May of 1996.
An expedition carrying tourists through the Sahara desert stops at the small town of Asselar in Mali. What should be a routine stop at the oasis town turns into a nightmare when the town’s residents, or what’s left of them, have gone crazy and brutally attack the tourists. The tourists are all killed and some of them are actually eaten by the crazy residents. The expedition’s leader escapes from the carnage, but he’s later captured and essentially silenced to cover up the massacre in the desert.
Over in Alexandria, Egypt, Dr. Eva Rojas, a biologist with the World Health Organization, is suddenly attacked by some men while she’s relaxing on a beach. The men grab her and try to strangle the woman to death. Before she passes out, a mysterious man fights off the attackers and saves Eva’s life. That mystery man turns out to be Dirk Pitt, the Special Projects Director for NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency).
It turns out that Dirk Pitt and NUMA were assisting with an archaeological expedition in the Nile River. Pitt was spending some free time on the beach when he noticed some suspicious men. His hunch about them was right and he was able to save Eva before they killed her. The question though is why would thugs try to murder Eva and make her death look like an accidental drowning?
Dr. Eva Rojas is part of a World Health Organization assignment that’s scheduled to investigate a mysterious disease outbreak in Mali. After having a fancy dinner with Pitt, Eva and her team depart for Mali.
Dirk Pitt and his assistant Al Giordino are recalled from Egypt and sent to a NUMA ship off the coast of Nigeria. On board the ship they are informed by Admiral James Sandecker and Rudi Gunn that a mysterious algal bloom has been detected in the Atlantic Ocean near the coast of Nigeria. This algal bloom is causing a red tide that is growing at an explosive rate and consuming vast amounts of oxygen. If this trend continues, then the red tide will consume all of the world’s oceans over the course of the next year, and nearly all of the oxygen will be depleted, causing the extinction of all oxygen-breathing life on Earth.
It’s up to Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino to literally save the world.
The tidal bloom is heavily concentrated around the delta area on the Niger River. Pitt, Giordino and Gunn take the Calliope, Admiral Sandecker’s super-yacht, and make a scientific expedition up the Niger River. They collect water samples and Gunn uses the ship’s on-board laboratory to try to determine what exactly is causing the algal bloom and red tide.
When the Calliope cruises through the nation of Benin, Benin’s small navy decides that they want to capture the fancy and luxurious super-yacht. The crew is forced to fight and the few Beninese ships learn that the super-yacht is actually heavily armored. The Calliope fights back and destroys a helicopter and sinks three Beninese ships. It’s not a clean fight for the Calliope as the ship’s long-range communication equipment is damaged.
The trio continues sailing up the Niger River, and Rudi Gunn is able to identify the specific pollutant that is responsible for causing the algal bloom and deadly red tide. They trace the pollutant to a specific point of origin along the Niger River. They’re in Mali, but at that point in the river, nothing exists. It’s just a small river town and not an industrial plant or a chemical factory.
By this point that Malian government has learned about the attack on the Beninese navy. General Zateb Kazim, the dictator and leader of Mali, decides that he would like the Calliope for himself. He’s heard about its incredible speed and firepower. General Kazim makes radio contact with the Calliope, but Dirk Pitt refuses to surrender the vessel. As the Malian ships pursue the Calliope, Rudi Gunn slips overboard and swims to shore while Dirk and Al continue to lead away the pursuing vessels. They then set explosives on the Calliope and jump overboard before the super-yacht explodes in a massive fireball.
Rudi Gunn makes his way to shore and heads towards a local airport while Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino climb on board a nearby houseboat. They find the boat’s communication room and Dirk places an emergency call to Admiral Sandecker, informing him of their location and what happened on the Niger River. Dirk and Al are then captured by the ship’s security team, and then placed in custody.
It turns out that the houseboat is owned by Yves Massarde, a French billionaire and close friend of General Kazim. Kazim is furious about the loss of the Calliope and he wants Dirk and Al to suffer for it. Unfortunately for Kazim, not only do Dirk and Al escape from their holding room on the houseboat, but they also steal a helicopter parked on the massive boat and make a clean getaway.
The helicopter doesn’t have a whole lot of fuel, so Dirk and Al fly to a nearby town on the Niger River and make a water landing, letting the helicopter sink to the bottom of the river. They then enter the town and learn more about the local area. The two guys then steal a luxurious Avions Voisin car that belongs to General Kazim, and they head into the Sahara desert to try to find the source of the pollutant. As they head into the desert, Admiral Sandecker has Hala Kamil of the United Nations to organize a rescue force to pull Rudi Gunn out of Mali.
While this is taking place, the small team from the World Health Organization makes a critical discovery in Mali, but General Kazim prevents them from taking their findings out of the country. He has the team kidnapped and sent to work in a gold mine in Tebezza. The WHO’s aircraft is crashed in the desert, making it look like the scientists were killed in an accident.
Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino have learned about a solar detoxification plant in the desert, and they head in that direction. They mainly travel at night and hide the car during the day. One night they come across an old American prospector named Clive Cussler. Cussler reveals that he’s actually there to find an old Confederate ironclad named the Texas. He’s following clues and hoping to find the long-lost Civil War vessel. But out there in the Saharan desert? Really?
Cussler gives Dirk and Al some food and water, and then the two people split ways.
Dirk and Al make their way to Fort Foureau, a solar-powered solid waste detoxification plant in a remote section of the desert. Foureau is heavily guarded, so Dirk and Al hide the Avions Voisin at an old French Foreign Legion fort. They then hop onto a train heading into Fort Foureau and successfully infiltrate the plant. What they discover inside the plant is that not only is solid waste from nuclear and chemical sources being destroyed, but even more of it is being improperly stored at the plant. Those containers are leaking and seeping down into an underground river that leads to the Niger River. It’s the source of the pollutants.
The men from NUMA are quickly captured by the plant’s security forces. It turns out that the plant is owned and operated by Yves Massarde. He has struck deals with countries and agreed to store nuclear waste for an incredible profit. The fact that it’s being stored illegally doesn’t matter to Massarde.
General Kazim orders Massarde to send Dirk and Al to the gold mine at Tebezza. He intends for them to suffer for the humiliation that they gave him and the theft of one of his prized cars. Tebezza is a slave labor gold mine where people are starved, beaten on a regular basis, and then die in the mine. There is no hope for anybody sent to work at Tebezza.
After working one of the shifts at Tebezza, Dirk discovers Eva Rojas there in the camp. She’s resembles more of a skeleton than that of a living person, but she’s thrilled to see Dirk. He’s viewed as a rescuer. The other members of the WHO team give him and Al advice about how to escape from the camp and then make their way to the Trans-Sahara motor track. None of them have the strength to help in the escape. All of their lives are now dependent on the two men from NUMA.
Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino successfully escape from the gold mine and steal one of the trucks. They make their way east until the truck runs out of fuel. The truck is ditched and Dirk and Al are forced to walk the last fifty or so miles through the brutal Sahara desert. At one point they discover a few large rocks that formed a cave, and inside are some cave paintings from hundreds of years ago. A more recent cave painting shows the drawing of what looks like the Texas ship, complete with the Confederate battle flag. Perhaps there’s more to the old man’s story than they originally believed.
They continue marching across the desert as they slowly die from dehydration. Just when all hope is nearly lost, Dirk and Al come across a shallow ravine and discover the wreckage from Kitty Mannock’s crash. Most of the aircraft is still in one piece but there’s no way that they can make the aircraft fly. Instead, Dirk and Al convert the wreckage into a land yacht, and they use the wind to push them the rest of the way to Algeria and the Trans-Sahara motor track. A truck driver spots the strange vehicle and rescues Dirk and Al from the perils of the Sahara.
The UN team that rescued Rudi Gunn is sent to Algiers to meet with Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino. Dirk and Al then lead the team in an attack against the gold mine at Tebezza. They easily attack and overwhelm the security team at the gold mine, and the imprisoned miners are freed. The only problem is that somebody in the gold mine’s communication center managed to send a distress call to General Kazim.
When the attack force returns to their transport aircraft, they watch in horror as one of Kazim’s attack aircraft destroys their transport. That fighter is also destroyed, but the damage is done. Instead of running to Algeria as General Kazim thinks that they will do, Dirk and Al instead lead the attack force to the French Foreign Legion fort outside of Fort Foureau. They can then hijack an outbound train and make their escape to neighboring Mauritania.
They make it to the French Foreign Legion fort and fortify it from an attack, but the trains that Dirk and Al spotted last time are suspiciously absent. They determine that Kazim has stopped the trains as a preventative measure. Without any communication with the outside world, the people in the fort are now trapped and at the mercy of General Kazim.
In a daring move, Al Giordino and one of the soldiers use a high-speed dune buggy to escape to Mauritania. They strip the car of its unnecessary armor and equipment and transfer all of the fuel from the other vehicles to the dune buggy. It’s just enough fuel to get them to the border. They make it there and meet up with American forces.
By now Kazim has figured out where the attackers are hiding, and in the morning he sends his army to lay siege and attack the French Foreign Legion fort. The defenders are vastly outnumbered, but they inflict significant casualties against the attackers. It’s a numbers game in the end, and as the defenders are injured and run out of ammunition, the attackers close in on them. Dirk Pitt retreats to the underground shelter and prepares to give Eva Rojas a mercy killing. It was agreed that none of the women or children would be allowed to be captured by Kazim’s men and returned to the horrific conditions at Tebezza.
Just before Dirk squeezes the trigger and kills Eva, Eva hears an approaching train. It is a train, and out of the train jump the American special forces led by Al Giordino. They launch a surprise attack against General Kazim’s men and slaughter them. One of the American soldiers enters Kazim’s headquarters and kills the general.
Now that Kazim is dead, there’s still some unfinished business for Dirk and Al. They use a helicopter to fly to Yves Massarde’s headquarters at Fort Foureau and kidnap the French businessman. Massarde refuses to cooperate, so he’s left out in the desert heat for a few hours. He’s then offered some water which he gladly drinks. Dirk then lets Massarde go. He later reveals that Massarde drank his own contaminated water, and he’ll suffer a painful death as he goes insane.
A special team goes to Fort Foureau and removes the illegally stored nuclear waste, preventing it from further contaminating the Niger River. The algal bloom is stopped and the deadly red tide begins to recede. The French engineers who helped construct Fort Foureau return to the detoxification plant and build a nuclear waste storage area deep enough to safely store the deadly material.
Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino later return to the southwestern part of the Sahara desert where they discovered the wreckage from Kitty Mannock’s aircraft. An Australian recovery team is there recovering the aviatrix’s body along with her aircraft. The aircraft will be restored to its original condition and placed in a museum back in Australia. Dirk and Al have been hailed as national heroes for locating the missing woman and ending that mystery dating back to 1931.
Using information from Kitty’s logbook, they locate the Texas buried under a sand dune. It turns out that the Texas successfully sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the coast of Africa. After cruising up the Niger River the ship continued its way up estuaries until it became trapped. The crew of the Texas died from hunger and dehydration. It was then robbed of all gold and valuables by desert raiders. The rivers dried and over the next 130 years, the Sahara desert became more arid. Sands overwhelmed the Texas and the Confederate ironclad became a long-lost mystery.
Sahara ends as Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino learn about the Texas‘ mysterious passenger. It’s revealed that days before the Civil War ended, Confederate raiders kidnapped President Abraham Lincoln. He was taken to Richmond and intended to be used as a bargaining piece, but that failed. Jefferson Davis didn’t want to be caught with the captured president and sentenced to death, so Lincoln was placed on the Texas and sent with the ship on its mission of saving the Confederacy.
A conspiracy by Edwin M. Stanton used a body double as a fake President Lincoln. The fake Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Booth was also in on the conspiracy, and a body double was used for his assassination a week later. In reality, according to this conspiracy, John Wilkes Booth lived in Oklahoma and later died in 1903.
The real body of Abraham Lincoln is returned to the United States and given a proper burial. Instead of causing chaos, the American public embraces its former leader and hold joyous celebrations in honoring him.
So is Sahara a good book?
Yes and no.
Mostly no.
Sahara had a great concept going with a mysterious illness that caused people to go insane and literally become cannibals, eating other people. Combine that with the mystery of the Texas Confederate ironclad, and this story has loads of potential material.
What I didn’t like was that this story became more like an environmental fable dealing with the end of the world (in a very fast and simplistic process). By the time you reach the end of the book and realize just how easily the solar detoxification plant is being converted to safely handle the stored nuclear waste, the whole plot of the book just seems even more ridiculous.
Why didn’t Yves Massarde simply dig the storage area deep enough to safely store the nuclear waste? He could have done that from the start and had a perfectly safe nuclear waste storage facility in one of the most remote areas of the world. He would have then sat back and collected massive profits for his efforts.
But he didn’t operate this way.
Instead, Massarde took the cheap route and stored the waste improperly. Almost all of the events in this novel could have been eliminated had Massarde simply dug his storage area a little bit deeper. That’s it. To add insult to injury, he had the French engineering team and their families imprisoned at the gold mine. The slave-like conditions in the gold mine, by the way, feel like a cheap rip-off of the slave mine in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Don’t look for much of Eva Rojas in this story. She’s a major character in the 2005 film Sahara, but here in the book she’s virtually non-existent. It’s hard to believe that she and Dirk managed to form a relationship even though they barely spent any time together in Egypt.
Unfortunately, the book Sahara feels mostly like a let down. The story had some fascinating moments and could have been a lot more intricate and sinister, but it seems like Clive Cussler took the easy route and jumped on the simple-minded environmental bandwagon. Yes, the book is full of action and moves at a fast pace, but it sacrifices interesting concepts with a cheesy plot and mentally inferior situations.
