Publisher, Penguin Audio (September 2009)

Thousands of years ago, the Persian king Xerxes the Great was said to have raided the Treasury at Delphi, carrying away two solid gold pillars as tribute. In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte and his army stumble across the pillars in the Pennine Alps. Unable to transport them, Napoleon creates a map on the labels of twelve bottles of rare wine. And when Napoleon dies, the bottles disappear. . .

Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are exploring the Great Pocomoke Swamp in Delaware when they are shocked to discover a World War II German u-boat. Inside, they find a bottle taken from Napoleon's "lost cellar". Fascinated, the Fargos set out to find the rest of the collection. But another connoisseur of sorts has been looking for the bottle they've just found. He is Hadeon Bondaruk--a half-Russian, half-Persian millionaire. He claims descent from King Xerxes himself.

And he wants his treasure back. . .

About Clive Cussler: Clive Cussler grew up in Alhambra, California. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, then enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and served as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer in the Military Air Transport Service. Upon discharge he became a copywriter and later creative director at two of the nation's leading ad agencies. He wrote and produced radio and television commercials in Hollywood that won numerous international honors including an award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt, in 1973. His first non-fiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. 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, 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed.

Cussler is an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization (named after the fictional Federal agency in his novels) that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites including the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, the Confederacy's Hunley, and its victim, the Union's Housatonic; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, which was sunk by the famous ironclad, Merrimack; the renowned Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron, the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, and the Carpathia, which sank almost six years to-the-day after plucking Titanic's survivors from the sea.

In September, 1998, NUMA - which turns over all artifacts to state and Federal authorities, or donates them to museums and universities - launched its own web site for those wishing more information about maritime history or wishing to make donations to the organization. (numa.net).

In addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler is also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration.

Cussler's books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries and have a readership of more than 90 million avid fans. His past international bestsellers include Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic, Vixen 03, Night Probe, Deep Six, Cyclops, Treasure, Dragon, Sahara, Inca Gold, Shock Wave, The Sea Hunters (non-fiction), Flood Tide, and Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt® Revealed. Cussler is also the author, with Paul Kemprecos, of the first in a new Dirk Pitt spinoff series - The NUMA files.

Cussler has been married to his wife, Barbara Knight, for more than 44 years. They have three children, two grandchildren, and divide their time between the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of Arizona.

About Grant Blackwood: Grant Blackwood caught the fiction-writing bug at the age of eighteen while reading Clive Cussler’s The Mediterranean Caper , and spent the next four years working in different styles of fiction before settling on novel-length work.

Mr. Blackwood is a U.S. Navy veteran, having spent three years active duty aboard the guided missile frigate USS Ford as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer.

Two months after leaving the Navy in July 1987, Mr. Blackwood started the first draft of his first novel, which as he puts it, “wasn’t good enough to be published, but good enough to earn a spot in my sock drawer. It took me several more years of rewriting before I realized the publishers and agents who’d been saying ‘no’ were saying no for a good reason.”

Twelve years to the day after leaving the Navy, Mr. Blackwood received an offer from Penguin-Putnam/Berkley to buy his second novel, The End of Enemies, which hit the stands May 8th.

Mr. Blackwood is 36 years old and lives in Minnesota, where he is working on this next novel, the second in the Briggs Tanner series of thrillers, which is due out in Spring/Summer of 2002.