Fully armed and with all hands on board, the nuclear submarine Starbuck sailed into the calm Pacific Ocean for sea trials - and vanished. No wreckage, no signals, no survivors: nothing ...until ace maritime troubleshooter Dirk Pitt finds a single, chilling clue in the shark-torn surf off Hawaii - the log of the Starbuck. 'Do not search for us, it can only end in vain ...' A crazed journal of madness and death is all that remains. And the Captain's final, scrawled, fear-crazed note locates the Starbuck's grave hundreds of miles from her last known position! The search for the Starbuck plunges Dirk Pitt into his most shattering assignment to date - a whirlpool of deep-sea mystery and terror - the Pacific Vortex!