The Spy

It is 1908, and the world's major powers are sliding toward war while America's navy races to establish technological supremacy. When a brilliant battleship gun designer dies in what appears to be suicide, Isaac Bell is hired to investigate and quickly determines that someone is systematically eliminating America's best military minds in service of a secret project called Hull 44. Cussler and Scott's third Bell novel moves through the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Chinatown, Hell's Kitchen, and the grey waters of Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet.

Scott Brick is ideally suited to Bell's era and occupation, his voice carrying the formal diction of the period and the physical confidence of a detective who operates through direct action as much as reasoning. His handling of the novel's international cast of spies maintains their distinctiveness across a long runtime, and his pacing through the naval sequences gives them the scope they require. At just over twelve hours, The Spy delivers the series' characteristic mix of historical detail and propulsive adventure.