1918. La Stella di Odessa, una vecchia carretta galleggiante, sfida le acque del mar Nero, diretta a Costantinopoli. Porta un carico prezioso: le persone della famiglia reale russa scampate al massacro bolscevico e una parte del favoloso tesoro dei Romanov. Un manipolo di cosacchi veglia sulla loro sicurezza ma, durante il viaggio, la nave è oggetto di un agguato. Equipaggio e passeggeri vengono trucidati e la Stella di Odessa cola a picco. Ma una ragazza, disperatamente aggrappata a una zattera di fortuna, si salva. Oggi. Kurt Austin e Joe Zavala sono di nuovo in azione. Questa volta il mistero ha fattezze inconsuete, ma non per questo meno insidiose. Chi sono i cosacchi che cercano di eliminare una troupe televisiva sulle coste del mar Nero?

Kurt Austin, the leader of NUMA's special assignments team, and his colleagues match wits with a billionaire mining tycoon claiming Romanov ancestry who has proclaimed himself czar of Russia and is seeking to topple the Russian government. Reprint.

La NUMA, l'organizzazione che indaga su misteri e complotti riguardanti il mondo marino, non può ignorare le preoccupanti notizie su una multinazionale che sta cercando di impadronirsi delle riserve idriche del mondo intero. L'oro blu, appunto, un bene il cui esaurimento rischia di pregiudicare la sopravvivenza del pianeta. Per ottenerne il controllo c'è chi è pronto a corrompere, minacciare e uccidere. L'indagine, nella quale vengono coinvolti Kurt Austin e il suo braccio destro Joe Zavala, segue una doppia pista che affianca sparatorie e inseguimenti urbani al recupero nella giungla del Venezuela di una misteriosa 'dea bianca', l'unica che conosce il segreto per dominare l'oro blu.

Giugno 2000 la squadra missioni speciali della NUMA, al comando di Kurt Austin, affiancato dall'ingegnere Joe Zavala, salva da un attentato l'archeologa Nina Kirov, autrice di una scoperta straordinaria destinata a sollevare un interrogativo inquietante: è possibile che Cristoforo Colombo non sia stato lo scopritore del continente americano? Nel frattempo, l'archeologa Gamay Trout trova, in alcune sculture dello Yucatan, la prova di contatti tra i Maya e i Fenici in epoca precolombiana e ipotizza un quinto viaggio di Colombo, partito in segreto per recuperare un tesoro di inestimabile valore con l'aiuto di una 'pietra parlante' di origine Maya. I due fatti sembrano misteriosamente collegati all'affondamento del transatlantico Andrea Doria...

A Kurt Austin Adventure

In Serpent, his New York Times bestseller, Clive Cussler introduced Kurt Austin, a hero for the new millennium, and 'created a new bunch of NUMA supersleuths who infused his work with a...jolt of energy' (The Denver Post). Now Austin and his crew slake their thirst for action as they attempt to drown an eco-extortionist's plan to control the world's freshwater supply.

BLUE GOLD

A Novel from the NUMA Files

From deep within the Venezuelan rain forest emanates the legend of a white goddess and a mysterious tribe with startling technical accomplishments. Few believe the tribe exists -- and even fewer suspect its deity may hold knowledge that can change the course of history.

For National Underwater & Marine Agency crew leader Kurt Austin, an investigation into the sudden deaths of rare whales leads him to the Mexican coast, where someone tries to put him and his mini-sub permanently out of commission. Meanwhile, in South America's lush hills, a specially assigned NUMA crew turns up the white-goddess legend -- and a murderous cadre of bio-pirates intent on stealing medicinal secrets worth millions. Soon Austin and his crew realize they're working the opposite ends of the same grand scheme. A billionaire California tycoon is poised to rise to power by monopolizing the earth's vastly depleted freshwater reserves and ultimately dominate the world.

Austin has a hunch Venezuela's mythical tribal goddess has some real roots in science, and may be the key to locating a secret formula that could turn vast amounts of seawater into fresh. But with each step into the bush, he and his NUMA team feel like fish out of water -- and must fight a deadly, twisting trail of enemies through a dense jungle of treachery, blackmail, and murder.

Clive Cussler, the author of sixteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers, unleashes a hero for the next millennium in an electrifying new series of unrelenting action and edge-of-your-seat thrills.

When Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater & Marine Agency exploration team, rescues beautiful marine archaeologist Nina Kirov off the coast of Morocco, he becomes the next target of Texas industrialist Don Halcon. A madman bent on carving a new nation out of the southwestern United States and Mexico, Halcon's scheme hinges on Nina's recent discovery involving Christopher Columbus, and a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity buried in the battered remains of the sunken Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria. Only Kurt Austin and his crack NUMA team stand between Halcon and the Andrea Doria's silent steel hull -- and if their deadly mission fails, Halcon will ride to power on a wave of death and destruction.

INTRODUCING KURT AUSTIN

From the classic novel Raise the Titanic! to his latest blockbuster Flood Tide, Clive Cussler and his fictional alter ego Dirk Pitt® have earned legions of fans worldwide. Now, the author of fifteen consecutive bestsellers unleashes a hero for the next millennium in an electrifying new series of unrelenting action and edge-of-your-seat thrills.

On the bottom of the icy sea off Nantucket lies the battered remains of the Italian luxury liner, Andrea Doria. But few know that within its bowels rests a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity -- a treasure that now holds the key to a puzzle that is costing people their lives.

For Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA) exploration team, the killing begins when he makes a daring rescue of a beautiful marine archaeologist. The target of a powerful Texas industrialist named Halcon, Nina Kirov was attacked off the coast of Morocco after her discovery of a carved stone head that may prove Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America. Soon Kurt and Nina embark on a deadly mission to uncover Halcon's masterful plan -- an insidious scheme that would have him carve out a new nation from the southwest United States and Mexico, and ride to power on a wave of death and destruction.

With Austin's elite NUMA crew attacking the murderous conspiracy from different sides, an extraordinary truth emerges: that Columbus may have made a fifth, unknown voyage to America in search of a magnificent treasure. And that the silent, steel hull of the Andrea Doria not only holds the answer to what the explorer may have found -- but the fate of the United States itself.

Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz is incontestably Latin America's foremost living poet. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz is a landmark bilingual gathering of all the poetry he has published in book form since 1952, the year of his premier long poem, Sunstone (Piedra de Sol)—here translated anew by Eliot Weinberger—made its appearance. This is followed by the complete texts of Days and Occasions (Días Hábiles), Homage and Desecrations (Homenaje y Profanaciones), Salamander (Salamandra), Solo for Two Voices (Solo a Dos Voces), East Slope (Ladera Este), Toward the Beginning (Hacza el Comienzo), Blanco, Topoems (Topoemas), Return (Vuelta), A Draft of Shadows (Pasado en Claro), Airborn (Hijos del Aire), and Paz's most recent collection, A Tree Within (Árbol Adentro).

With additional translations by Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Blackburn, Lysander Kemp, Denise Levertov, John Frederick Nims, and Charles Tomlinson.