As I plow my way through Clive Cussler‘s entire bibliography, I inevitably must come across some easily-forgotten stories from The NUMA Files series for a second time. White Death, the story of inbred Eskimos who crave to ruin world fisheries by breeding monster fishes to eat all others, is one such tale.

The wicked play on words, using “white death” to describe both the massive, white-fleshed salmon which is destroying the ocean’s ecology and the albino Eskimo villain who perpetrates it all is a step beyond silly for this team of authors, but hey. Who am I to complain? I read the book twice!

The story is partially set in the Farow Islands, involving the traditional Faroe butchering of pilot whales and the hippie eco-terrorists who want to stop them. Much of this aspect of the story reminded me of the TV documentary Whale Wars which follows the struggles of the crew of The Sea Shepherd against Japanese whalers and their fleet of ships. I really enjoyed that show, though sometimes I pulled for the Japanese, simply because The Sea Shepherd got all the coverage.

I didn’t see a great deal of growth in any main character during this book, from Kurt and Joe to Paul and Gamay. This means that it’s pretty much a throw-away tale in the series. Not an important book at all. There are some weird scenes, actually, like the dog-sled race through the streets of D.C. and the murderous, cannibalistic Eskimo’s that no one’s ever heard of. It’s got its amusing scenes, to be sure, so Clive Cussler fans may still find it worth exploring. As for me, though, I’m happy to put it behind me and move on to even stranger pastures—like those of Lost City.

©2019 E.T.

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