For National Underwater Marine Agency crew leader Kurt Austin, an investigation into the sudden deaths of rare whales leads him to the Mexican coast, where someone tries to put him and his mini-sub permanently out of commission. Meanwhile, in South America's lush hills,a specially assigned NUMA crew turns up the white-goddess legend -- and a murderous cadre of bio-pirates intent on stealing medicinal secrets worth millions. Soon Austin and his crew realize they're working the opposite ends of the same grand scheme. A billionaire California tycoon is poised to rise to power by monopolizing the earth's vastly depleted freshwater reserves and ultimately dominate the world.

Austin has a hunch Venezuela's mythical tribal goddess has some real roots in science, and may be the key to locating a secret formula that could turn vast amounts of seawater into fresh. But with each step into the bush, he and his NUMA team feel like fish out of water -- and must fight a deadly, twisting trail of enemies through a dense jungle of treachery, blackmail, and murder.

Earth is a paradox -- a fertile world three-quarters covered with water, yet in danger of running dry. Overuse and pollution have drained most of its fresh water, and scientist Francesca Carval's brilliant formula for desalination (a process to convert salt water into fresh) has vanished with her plane over South America. But when Kurt Austin and his NUMA team come across a pod of dead whales, their investigation takes them from the open oceans to the Venezuelan jungle -- where a hunt for Carval places them in the direct line of fire of a cadre bent on controlling the world's supply of fresh water.

With more than 100 million copies of his books sold worldwide, perennial bestselling author Clive Cussler is a publishing phenomenon. A world-class collector of classic automobiles, he has discovered more than sixty lost ships of historic significance with his own NUMA (National Underwater Marine Agency) crew of volunteers. He divides his time between Arizona and Colorado.