Starting out of 1035, Valhalla Rising tells of a tribe of Vikings’ struggle to find a new place to settle in America. Shooting forward to 1894, we read of a sea monsters causing havoc for the local shipping in the Caribbean Sea. Finally, the tale settles in 2003, when the cruise ship Emerald Dolphin suddenly bursts into flames on its maiden voyage from Sidney to Tahiti. As the flames spread unnaturally fast, it looks like the all 2500 people aboard the ship are doomed.

Cue Dirk Pitt; National Underwater and Marine Agency engineer, who spots the burning ship and rushes to the rescue aboard Deep Encounter, an oceanographic survey vessel. Miraculously arriving in time to save thousands of lives, but not in time to stop Emerald Dolphin sinking into the depths, Dirk Pitt launches an investigation into what caused the disaster. What Dirk doesn’t realise is that sea monsters that now have him in their sights are both human and mechanical, both ancient and modern – Dirk is in deep this time.

Valhalla Rising is a kraken of a thriller than will grip your from beginning to end in the many tentacles of Clive Cussler’s imagination.