Night Probe!
1st Edition Hardcover
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| Author | Clive Cussler |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Lou Feck |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dirk Pitt novels |
| Genre | Adventure, Techno-thriller novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
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Publication date
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August 1981 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 344 pp (Hardcover edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 7575099 |
| 813/.54 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.U75 N5 1981 |
| Preceded by | Vixen 03 |
| Followed by | Pacific Vortex! |
Night Probe! is an adventure novel by Clive Cussler. This is the 5th book featuring the author’s primary protagonist, Dirk Pitt. Published in 1981, it is set in the near future of 1989, a date with ironic significance (see below).
The book's plot includes a major element of Secret History.
The world is in the throes of an energy crunch and the United States is on the brink of financial disaster. Desperate to find any solution that can save the nation from national bankruptcy, the President of the United States looks to Dirk Pitt and NUMA to pull off an audacious double salvage operation.
Cussler, through the character Pitt, claims that "Night Probe" is an old diving term for exploring the darkness of underwater caves.
It is 1989 and the United States is in an economic freefall because "From Franklin Roosevelt on, every chief executive has played a game of tag, pinning a multiplying financial burden on the office of his successor," (said by the POTUS in part 1) and by increasing scarcity of oil.
CIA estimates put the depletion of the Middle East oilfields at just two years away. The total worldwide demand for oil is more than 50% of estimated supplies and while nuclear and other alternative energies are trying to make up the difference they are coming up short. Canada is now the exclusive supplier of electricity to 15 states in the northeast after investing billions in a massive new hydro-electric power plant in Quebec. To make matters worse, a top-secret experimental sub developed by NUMA has recently discovered a stratigraphic trap, potentially the richest kind of oil deposit, which lies just across the border in the territorial waters of Quebec.
Radicals in Quebec resembling the FLQ, secretly led by Canadian MP Henri Villon, are pushing for a referendum on independence from Canada. Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Charles Sarveux fears that if Quebec declares independence Canada will disintegrate as the other provinces either follow Quebec into independence or possibly petition the U.S. for statehood.
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Wikipedia