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!