This is book #3, in the Deep Six series. This book can be read as a standalone.  For reader enjoyment, and to avoid spoilers, I recommend reading the series in the order intended.

Alexis wants Mason and she has made no secret of it.  Her uncontrollable attraction appears one sided, but he shows her repeatedly with though and deed that is not so.  Only they have to dodge attempts on their lives and search for treasure while keeping themselves apart.

Mason has no idea what to do with Alex.  One minute she is the smartest, most beautiful woman he has ever known, and the next she is the most cunning sexpot alluring him with her honest mouth.  Can they survive it all?

The pace of this book moves very fast as there is much inside.  Lots of surprises for the reader, as well as a burning heat between the main characters that may move the reader to need a fan.  The gang is all here in this one, and the new installment is satisfying, if not a slow burn.  I give this a 3/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

***This ARC copy was given by Netgalley and its publishers, in exchange for an honest review.

A ship goes down in unknown waters leaving only two survivors that know where a vast amount of Chinese heritage is located, a ship that a human trafficking Chinese businessman would do anything to find.  Flood Tide is the fourteenth book of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt with the titular character attempting to stop a human trafficking ring to the U.S. and preventing a massive economic and human disaster in Louisiana.

A ship taken by the retreating Nationalist government is loaded the national treasures of China before Mao’s Communists can get them in 1948, but before it reaches it’s destination it sinks in a violent storm with only the ship’s engineer and his girlfriend surviving on a freezing shore.  In 2000 Dirk Pitt is vacationing and recovering from his injuries in Australia at Orion Lake when he realizes the cabin he borrowed has been search by the security of a Chinese businessman’s estate at the other end of the lake.  Intrigued Pitt investigates only to find the mansion is a holding prison for illegal Chinese immigrants while the bottom of the lake is littered with dead bodies.  Pitt saves new victims from drowning including an undercover INS agent and wrecks to the estate’s docking area before escaping down the Orion River to the Pacific from the security force.  The INS raid the estate and the businessman Qin Shang begins damage control, including sending feelers to the White House and the President who he has given money to for his reelection campaign.  Pitt teams up with Al Giordino to investigate a cruise ship in Hong Kong that Shang had bought and was refitting believing it’s to continue his illegal human trafficking ring, but find it empty except for automated guidance equipment that then navigates the ship across the Pacific without a crew.  The pair return to the U.S. and Pitt along with the INS agent survive a car chase against Shang’s henchmen, but NUMA and the INS have a spat leading to them not working together anymore.  Pitt and Giordino head to the Louisiana to investigate Shang’s shipping port that is in the middle of no where from the Mississippi when the duo figure out how his human trafficking network works in the area and again save the INS agent that Pitt keeps running into.  Shang’s automated cruise ship arrives on the Mississippi River, but Pitt figured out Shang’s plan to redirect the flow of the Mississippi bypassing New Orleans and going to his out-of-the way port by blowing a levee and scuttling the cruise ship across the river.  Pitt and Giordino takeover the ship and guide it into the levee’s breech to prevent a massive disaster.  Shang flees to China where the Communist government will protect him while as there is battle in the U.S. between those he bribed against those who want him charged with terrorism.  After learning everything to know about Shang including his search for the ship carrying his nation’s treasures, Pitt and NUMA discover the location of the wreck in Lake Michigan after talking with the survivor of the ship and his wife.  NUMA, the Navy, and a Canadian salvage vessel recover everything before they leak the location into Shang’s channels.  His massive ego leads Shang to arrive in Canada to border his own salvage vessel and goes down first only to find the ship empty with Pitt and Giordino springing a trap that send Shang to the bottom to die like all those at the bottom of Orion Lake.  Admiral Sandecker and the head of the INS threaten the President to keep their own jobs with his own political future in the balance.

Having previously listened to the audiobook edition, I had completely forgotten about the Chinese treasure ship or Shang bribing of U.S. politicians but do remember the human trafficking and diverting the Mississippi plot points.  That was because the human trafficking and Mississippi diversion plots were the good parts of the book while the other two were forgettable.  Pitt comes off as superhuman given what he went through in Shock Wave while the INS agent Julia Marie Lee could have been a good character if not for becoming a multiple time damsel-in-distress character.  Qin Shang could have been an interesting antagonist if not for some the trope material that Cussler saddled him especially at the end of the book.  In fact, Cussler’s politics are heavy handed throughout the book and his “not-Clinton” but totally Clinton President were a little too much for my tastes.

Shock Wave is a okay book at best and felt a like downgrade in quality from Clive Cussler’s previous installments of his bestselling series.  While not as bad as some of the early books in the series, this book was a disappointment given the good elements that were undermined by the bad.

Noted a few editing errors.
Ianthe is a mermaid from another world living and working as a PI in DC. Her identity is also a secret. She runs into problems with a case she is working on.
This was an interesting short story. It lacked world building d/t it's length. There were some unanswered questions as well (surprise!). I did like Dolly Madison the ghost. She was fun.

I finally took my eyes off the water, peering at her through the disheveled curtain of my hair. “Are you just babbling at me until I start feeling better?”

 

"Yup!” Marcia beamed. “Is it working?”

 

My stomach was no longer roiling. I didn’t trust myself to stand up on my own, but I also didn’t feel like I was about to introduce the barnacles to my breakfast. Again. I blinked. “Actually, yes.”

 

“Sometimes you need to take peoples’ minds off their problems if you want those problems to resolve themselves,” said Marcia. “Focusing on things can make them worse.”

 

“Not all problems go away if you ignore them. Most don’t.”

 

“No, but not all problems can be fixed. Sometimes you have to wait until the situation changes.” She smiled sympathetically. “Like if you’re on a boat and you get seasick.”

Yup. Toby's on a boat—a sailing ship, to be precise—just the place for someone who hates water. Why is she there? Well, that has something to do with the debt she owes the Luidaeg. The Luidaeg has decided that time is up and it's now time to pay that mysterious bill she told the Selkies was coming due. And Toby has to come along to help her collect. A couple of months ago, when I listened to the audiobook of One Salt Sea, I wondered what happened to that ominous future event, so that was nice to see. On the other hand, we're told that this was nearly three years ago, which means it takes only three-ish years for books 6-12 to occur? That's an eventful life right there.

Because they're apt to be useful, and because Toby isn't likely to come nicely without them, the Luidaeg also brings Tybalt and Quentin along on their trip to the Duchy of Ships, where a convocation of Selkies will be held to pay this bill. Due to the significance of this happening, a few other dignitaries come, too—delegations from the Kingdom of the Mists, the Duchy of Saltmist, and Goldengreen—oh, and Gillian (which makes sense for people who've read the previous book, Night and Silence).

So we've got a group of Toby's friends, a new Duchy for most of them to visit, a bunch of debts the Luidaeg is collecting, and the fate of an entire race in the balance. What could go wrong?

Naturally, that's the wrong question. Something better to ask is: how many pints of blood will Toby lose while trying to fix what goes wrong and how many others will die? Obviously, I'm not going to answer those, but we need to get our thinking straight.

Something I want to mention before I forget: Before the Sea Witch shows up at her door, Toby's narration gives a very thorough and succinct recap of the entire series (one of the best of those I've read lately, it's a tricky thing to accomplish) before noting

...there's a lot of history around here, and sometimes it doesn't summarize very well.

It's a small thing, but it made me smile—McGuire excels at those.

The Luidaeg has got to be just about the most popular character in this series, and we really get to know her so much better here than we have before—and it made me so happy to see this. I'd gladly take another Luidaeg-centric book or three any day of the week. Seeing her at this turning point in all her power and all her grief is just stunning. I don't think I'd ever felt bad for her (at least not for long), but watching her being resolute in carrying out the duty she was bound to here—while clearly not wanting to go through with it—was moving. Early in the book, there's a scene between her and a little girl that just about broke my heart. At the same time, she has plenty of great lines and made me chuckle a lot, too. Her interactions with Quentin (and vice versa) might be my favorite parts of the book.

The Luidaeg/Selkie story was strong enough that I don't care so much about the rest of the book, which is good, because I think it's one of her weakest. There's an adventure in Saltmist that seemed pretty perfunctory and while the ending is very clever—and gives Toby a chance to embrace the technicalities of Faerie in a way she usually doesn't (that is, keeping the letter of the law, but doing a tap dance all around the intent)— it seemed anti-climatic. We have a great build-up and then an almost let-down of a conclusion.

A few quick bullet points that I don't have the time to expand on (nor do I think I could do them justice without talking too much about them):

• No one expected, I trust, that things between Toby and Gillian would get better after Night and Silence, but it was tough (yet understandable and believable) to read Gillian's reactions to Toby here.

• There are repeated references to the weakness/susceptibility to harm of one member of Toby's group—McGuire hit that note so often that I really feared for that character. One that I didn't realize I liked as much as I did when I feared for their safety and longevity.

• We get to meet another Firstborn! She's just fantastic and I hope we get to see more of her. Also, the reactions of various members of her descendant races to meeting her in the flesh were priceless.

• Someone's blind fosterage is getting harder to maintain. That could prove interesting (and in the Toby-verse, interesting usually is defined as calamitous)

• Clearly, Toby's reputation as someone who topples monarchies has spread far and wide. This isn't good for her, but will be good for us readers.

• Marcia continues to show more depth and ability than I gave her credit for when we met (which surprises me almost every time we see it)

• What we're told about future books here (in terms of Toby's future obligations) is enough to get long-term readers excited (not that we needed the encouragement, really, but it's nice to know)

This isn't one of the best in the series—but it features some of the best moments, scenes, events. It's not a trade-off I'm entirely pleased with, but I can live with it (and thankfully the good far outweighed the less-good). It's safe to say that a lot won't be the same again in this world or for many of these characters. Any time I spend with Toby, Tybalt, Quentin, the Luidaeg, etc. is a good time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the read, I just wanted a bit more from an author who usually brings more than you could realistically ask for.

TITLE:  The Unkindest Tide

SERIES:  October Daye, #13

AUTHOR:  Seanan McGuire

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DESCRIPTION:

"Hundreds of years ago, the Selkies made a deal with the sea witch: they would have the sea for as long as she allowed it, and when the time came, she would call in all their debts at once. Many people assumed that day would never come. Those people were wrong.

When the Luidaeg—October "Toby" Daye's oldest and most dangerous ally—tells her the time has come for the Selkies to fulfill their side of the bargain, and that Toby must be a part of the process, Toby can't refuse. Literally. The Selkies aren't the only ones in debt to the Luidaeg, and Toby has to pay what she owes like anyone else. They will travel to the fabled Duchy of Ships and call a convocation of the Selkies, telling them to come and meet the Luidaeg's price...or face the consequences.

Of course, nothing is that simple. When Dianda Lorden's brother appears to arrest Dianda for treason against the Undersea, when a Selkie woman is stripped of her skin and then murdered, when everything is falling apart, that's when Toby will have to answer the real question of the hour.

Is she going to sink? Or is she going to swim?"

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REVIEW:

A nice, action packed addition to the series.  This novel involves the Luidaeg and her selkies, as well as new characters, which is always great.  The mayhem was a bit toned down, and I felt one of the most important sections that occured at the end of the novel was a bit too brief, but this still made for an enjoyable read.  This novel also includes a nice little short story about Raj. 

PS:  I wish Toby would hurry up and get married before there is more murder, mayhem and disaster, though I suspect any wedding of Toby's is likely to be a blood bath anyway.