‘Cave Diver’ by Jake Avila is a fast, thrilling and action-filled thriller that is guaranteed to keep the reader hooked until the last paragraph, well, it did me anyway!
We begin with a prologue that is set in January 1946, Papua New Guinea on the Sepik River. Six months after the end of the second world war, an Australian patrol boat find a cylinder on the river. They discover human remains and as they check for anything to identify the remains they come across a knights cross with M.H. 1941 engraved on it and a badge of the Waffen SS. We see the crew keep the silver to hand in as they returned to land with the question of who was M.H?
We are brought back to the present day and Rob Nash, an ex-explorer who used to adore being in the water as a cave diver, surfer anything that meant he could be in the water. That is until his wife, Natalie died. A death he and others blame him for. Even the press hound him, accusing him of allowing his wife to drown. He is hardly living now until he receives an email from his ‘uncle’ Frank, a tv outfit wants them to shoot a major documentary in an area that had been Rob’s boyhood dream to explore The Hoosenbeck, discovered in the late sixties by a Dutch speleological team. They had never managed to find how deep it was, or how far it went. But where it was stopped further exploration by anyone, it is five or so kilometres inside Indonesian Papua, with mountains and inaccessible rainforests but also a vicious guerilla war had raged for decades. The question is can Rob actually go back to the one thing that he loved until he experienced the nightmare of Natalie’s death?
A book with more twists and turns than the spaghetti junction. A mission that isn’t what it first seems. A book that you have no choice but to be consumed by. A plethora of characters that have a multitude of intentions and agendas which make your adrenaline rush through your body as the danger rises throughout the story.
I was firmly with Rob as the bullets began to fly, almost tried dodging one myself! I am just glad I didn’t have a blood pressure check while I was reading this book anyway. I was transfixed to the spot at certain times and would not put the kindle down until I got to a ‘safe’ part.
A book that is worthy of the 2019 Adventure Writer’s Competition Clive Cussler Grandmaster Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for 2020. If you love an action-packed adventure that will definitely keep you reading this is a book for you.
Thanks to Tracy Fenton and Zaffre Books for the gifted copy of this fantastic book.
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