By: Clive Cussler

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1950: The rusting hulk of a steam locomotive is raised from the depths of a Montana lake. Inside are three bodies, bloody clue to a fortune lost for over forty years . . .

1906: For two years, banks across the western United States have been living in terror of the 'Butcher Bandit'. This cold-blooded bank robber empties safes and murders all witness, vanishing without trace. In desperation, the US government calls in Isaac Bell, best detective in the country. From Arizona to Colorado to the streets of San Francisco during the great quake, Bell uses all his guile and ingenuity to catch up with the murderous Bandit.

But when Bell has him almost cornered - the Bandit turns really nasty. Suddenly the stakes have changed. Bell isn't just battling to get his man. He's fighting for his very survival.

About the Author

Clive Cussler is the author of over twenty-five internationally bestselling books, including the Dirk Pitt adventure series, the NUMA FILES novels and the Oregon Files Adventures.

He grew up in Alhambra, California. He later attended Pasadena City College for two years, but then enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War where he served as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer in the Military Air Transport Service. Upon his discharge, he became a copywriter and later creative director for two leading ad agencies. At that time, he wrote and produced radio and television commercials that won numerous international awards, one at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Cussler began writing in 1965 and published his first novel featuring Dirk Pitt in 1973. His first non-fiction work, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. Because of this work the Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in May of 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed.

Cussler is the founder the National Underwater & Marine Agency, (NUMA), a non-profit organisation that dedicates itself to American maritime and naval history. In addition to being Chairman of NUMA, Cussler is a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London.

A noted collector of classic automobiles, Cussler owns 85 of the finest examples of custom coachwork and 50's convertibles to be found anywhere. They are garaged near Golden, Colorado. Today, Cussler divides his time between the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of Arizona.

In The Press

Publishers Weekly
Cussler takes a breather from his several ongoing series with this historical thriller set in the western states, circa 1906. The U.S. government hires the renowned Van Dorn Detective Agency and its equally renowned lead agent, Isaac Bell, to capture the bank robber known as the Butcher Bandit. The Butcher has gunned down 38 men and women and two children, leaving behind neither witnesses nor clues. Bell heads the manhunt and finally figures out the Butcher's true identity, which is when the real chase begins. Unfortunately, Cussler's style is patterned on the clunky dialogue ("I pray you catch the murdering scum") and improbable characters of the period's dime novels, and his in-depth research makes his descriptions sound like advertising. Once San Francisco gets hit by the 1906 earthquake and the principals climb aboard a pair of fire-breathing locomotives, the novel cranks up a head of steam and some high-speed thrills. (Nov.)

Library Journal
Dirk Pitt takes a vacation and Cussler gives us Isaac Bell, a detective with the Van Dorn Agency operating in the early years of the 20th century. This New York Times best seller begins with a contemporary discovery of an old railroad engine in a Montana lake and then takes listeners back to a time when the West was in its last throes of being considered "wild." Isaac is on the trail of a murderous bank robber who has earned the nickname "The Butcher Bandit" because of his habit of killing everyone who might be a potential witness. After an abortive attempt to lure the robber to Telluride, CO, Isaac comes into possession of clues that leads him to believe that the robber might indeed be another banker and that he might reside in San Francisco. The tale is typical Cussler, and while his florid prose might be the literary equivalent of warm milk, he is dependable and presents a darn good adventure story with plenty of twists, bad guys, and breathtaking action. Scott Brick does his usual outstanding job of narrating, not in a monotonous recitation but in a slow, almost laconic manner that captures the listener's attention even when characters "hiss" and "snarl" and villains are referred to as "dastardly." Cussler fans will welcome the arrival of Isaac, the new hero on the block, even as they await the next Dirk Pitt novel. Recommended. —Joseph L. Carlson

Kirkus Reviews
The smartest shamus on earth tracks the planet's cleverest lowlife in the latest to roll from the Cussler assembly line (Polar Shift, 2005, etc.). In 1906, they didn't come any nastier than the Butcher Bandit, who, when the book opens, has already racked up 38 kills, a goodly number of them women and children. He robs banks, murdering-remorselessly-any unfortunate who happens to be on the premises at the time. So adept at the work is he, we're told exhaustively, that he's commonly believed to be uncatchable. Which is why Isaac ("He always gets his man") Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency is assigned the case. But the Butcher Bandit is a slippery one indeed. Not only brilliant, audacious and cold-blooded beyond measure, he is also not the stuff of which bottom-feeders are usually made. For it turns out that the master criminal who has robbed banks all over the Southwest is actually a bank president himself. In San Francisco, the extremely solvent Cromwell Bank is a byword for respectability, its founder and chief executive a pillar of the community. That would be Jacob Cromwell, aka the much sought after Butcher Bandit. So how to explain Cromwell's deep, dark plunge into criminality? He loves the challenge, he says. There's also that new word, Bell explains to an understandably puzzled colleague, that psychology professionals are beginning to use: sociopath. At any rate, the game's afoot, the antagonists perfectly matched, with Cromwell convinced he can rob, kill and elude capture, and Bell promising not to rest "until I capture the man responsible for these hideous crimes."Thin characters, fat plot-holes, sluggish pacing and Cussler's signature clunky prose. First printing of 750,000

APRIL 15, 1950 FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA

It rose from the depths like an evil monster in a Mesozoic sea. A coat of green slime covered the cab and boiler while gray-brown silt from the lake bottom slid and fell off the eighty-one-inch drive wheels and splashed into the cold waters of the lake. Ascending slowly above the surface, the old steam locomotive hung for a moment from the cables of a huge crane mounted on a wooden barge. Still visible under the dripping muck, beneath the open side window of its cab, was the number 3025.

Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3025 rolled out of the factory on April 10th of 1904. The 'Pacific' class was a common large-sized, high-drive-wheeled steam engine that could pull ten steel passenger cars long distances at speeds up to ninety miles an hour. She was known as a 4-6-2 because of her four-wheeled truck in the front, just behind the cowcatcher, the six massive drive wheels below the boiler, and the two small wheels mounted beneath the cab.

The crew on the barge watched in awe as the crane operator orchestrated his levers and gently lowered old 3025 onto the main deck, its weight settling the barge three inches deeper in the water. She sat there almost a minute before the six men overcame their wonderment and detached the cables.

'She's in remarkably good shape for sitting underwater for almost fifty years,' murmured the salvage superintendent of the battered old barge that was nearly as ancient as the locomotive. Since the nineteen twenties, it had been used for dredging operations on the lake and surrounding tributaries.

Bob Kaufman was a big, friendly man, ready with a laugh at the slightest hint of something jovial. With a face ruddy from long hours spent in the sun, he had been working on the barge for twenty-seven years. Now seventy-five, he could have retired long ago, but as long as the dredging company kept him on he was going to keep working. Sitting at home and working jigsaw puzzles was not his idea of the good life. He studied the man standing beside him, who was, as close as he could figure, slightly older.

'What do you think?' Kaufman asked.

The man turned, tall and still lean in his late seventies, hair full and silver. His face was as weathered as buckskin. He stared at the locomotive thoughtfully through eyes yet to rely on glasses. They gleamed blue with a tinge of lavender. A large silver mustache covered his upper lip as if it had been planted there many years ago. It matched his eyebrows, which had become bushy with age. He lifted an expensive Panama hat off his head and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

He walked over to the salvaged locomotive, now sitting solidly on the deck, and focused his attention on the cab. Water and muck poured down its ladders and spilled across the deck of the barge.

'Despite the grime,' he said finally, 'she's still aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Only a question of time before a railroad museum comes up with the funds to restore her for display.'

'Lucky a local fisherman lost his outboard engine and dragged the bottom to find it or the locomotive might have been down there another half century.'

'Yes, it was a stroke of luck,' the tall, silver-haired man said slowly. Kaufman stepped over and ran a hand over one of the big drive wheels. A sentimental expression crossed his face. 'My daddy was an engineer with the Union Pacific,' he said quietly. 'He always said the Pacific-type locomotive was the finest he ever drove. He used to let me sit in the cab when he brought a train into the yard. The Pacific class was used mostly to haul passenger cars because it was so fast:' A team of divers, wearing suits of canvas sandwiched between layers of rubber, stood on a platform as it was raised from beneath the surface of the cold water. They wore the Mark V brass hard hat, large weight belts around their chests, and diving boots with canvas tops, brass toes, and lead soles that weighed thirty-six pounds. Altogether, the divers wore one hundred fifty pounds of equipment. They tugged at their umbilical cords, leading to the surface-supplied diving air pump, as the platform was raised and swung down to the deck. They were no sooner aboard than another team climbed down ladders and stood on the platform as it descended into the waters of the lake, still icy from the long Montana winter.

The tall man watched silently, looking out of place among the barge's crew in their grease-stained work clothes and overalls. He wore neatly pressed brown slacks with an expensive cashmere knit sweater under a cashmere jacket. His shoes were highly polished and had amazingly kept their shine on the oil-soaked deck, amid the rusting cables.

He eyed the heavy layers of silt on the steps leading to the cab and turned to Kaufman. 'Let's get a ladder over here so we can climb into the cab.'

Kaufman gave an order to a nearby barge crewman and a ladder soon appeared and was propped against the lip of the cab's floor behind the engineer's seat. The superintendent went up first, followed by the elderly observer. Water dripped in sheets from the roof while dissolved coal merged with the silt flowing through the open door of the firebox onto the metal floor.

At first, it looked like the cab was empty. The maze of valves, pipes, and levers mounted over the boiler was coated with layers of ooze and the tentacles of green weed growing from it. The muck on the floor of the cab was ankle-deep, but the tall, quiet observer did not seem to notice it coming over the tops of his shoes. He knelt down and studied three humps that rose from the ooze like small hills.

'The engineer and fireman,' he announced.

'You sure?'

He nodded. 'I'm sure. The engineer was Leigh Hunt. He had a wife and two children, both grown now to middle age. The fireman was Robert Carr. He was going to be married after the run.'

'Who was the third man?'

'Name was Abner Weed. A tough customer. He forced Hunt and Carr to operate the engine with a gun in their backs.'

'They don't look pretty,' Kaufman muttered, repelled by what he saw. 'I'm surprised they didn't turn into skeletons.'

'There would be nothing left of them if they died in salt water, but the cold, fresh water of Flathead Lake preserved them. What you see is the adipose tissue in which fat is stored. It breaks down over time when immersed, giving the body a waxy, soapy look called saponification.'

'We'll have to call the sheriff and get a coroner out here.'

'Will that delay the operation?' asked the stranger.

Kaufman shook his head. 'No, it shouldn't slow things down any. As soon as the team of relief divers attach the lift cables, we'll bring up the coal tender.'

'It's important that I see what's in the attached car.'

'You will.' Kaufman looked at the man, trying in vain to read his thoughts. 'Better we tackle the tender first to simplify matters. If we concentrate on the car before it has been uncoupled from the tender, it might prove disastrous. It may not be as heavy as the locomotive, but unless we're very careful it might break into pieces. It's a fax trickier operation. Besides, the front end of the baggage car is half buried under the tender.'

'It's not a baggage car. It's a boxcar, or freight car.'

'How could you know that?'

The observer ignored the question. 'Raise the coal tender first. You're in charge.'

Kaufman stared down at the ugly lumps that had once been humans. 'How did they get here? How could a train come to be lost in the middle of the lake all these years?'

The tall man gazed out over the calm blue lake. 'Forty-four years ago, there was a ferry that carried railcars loaded with lumber back and forth across the lake.'

'It sure is strange,' said Kaufman slowly. 'Newspapers and the Southern Pacific officials reported that the train was stolen. As I recall, the date was April 21, 1906.'

The old man smiled. 'A cover-up by the company. The train wasn't stolen. A railroad dispatcher was bribed to charter the engine.'

'Must have been something valuable in the freight car to kill for,' said Kaufman. 'Like a shipment of gold.'

The old man nodded. 'Rumors circulated that the train was carrying gold. If the truth be known, it was not gold but hard cash.'

'Forty-four years,' Kaufman said slowly. 'A long time for a train to go missing. Maybe the money is still inside the car.'

'Perhaps,' said the tall man, looking toward the horizon at a vision only he could see. 'Just perhaps we'll find the answers when we get inside.'

ISBN: 9780141030319
ISBN-10: 0141030313
Series: Isaac Bell Ser.
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 496
Published: September 2008
Dimensions (cm): 18.1 x 11.1  x 3.0
Weight (kg): 18.1