Isaac Bell works for the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Traveling from Europe back to the U.S aboard the Mauretania, he comes across two people being abducted. He breaks it up but the leader of the kidnappers, an extremely agile guy, got away. The two targets, who claim to have figured out how to record visuals with sound that remains synchronized (in other words, talking pictures), are still in danger. Unless Bell can figure out who "the Acrobat" is and shut him down.
It's a Clive Cussler novel so, like all those Dirk Pitt books I read as a teenager, the plot doesn't really slow down. It's sort of a race, Bell trying different avenues to determine who he's up against and to protect the scientists, the Acrobat lurking in the shadows, trying to figure out who he's dealing with and pick his spots to strike. Cussler and Scott jump between characters on a regular basis, so there's always something going on. Either Bell is making some inquiry about the Acrobat or the mysterious "Artists Syndicate" that funds Imperial Films, or the Acrobat is intimidating or killing someone, or something's going on with another detective that's trying to help Bell.
Most of that last part is focused on Van Dorn's rep in Berlin, since the targets know they're being pursued by the German Army, and switches partway between the actual detective, and a precocious teenage girl that's decided being a detective is much better than hanging around her broken home. There's several chapters in the back half devoted to her trying to escape the country and report critical information she's learned. It felt like padding, but this is the 5th Isaac Bell book, so maybe Cussler and Scott were planning on her being a permanent part of the cast going forward, and wanted to establish her bonafides.
There's also a lot of what I assume is accurate historical detail about a variety of things. Thomas Edison's monopoly on cameras and film in the early 20th Century, the conditions in the boiler rooms of coal-powered ships, telegraphs and difficulties with filming in natural light or with recording sound. Apparently Edison's recording devices couldn't pick up a piano being played? Most of it isn't the kind of topics I'm wildly interested in, but it helps to make the world feel more three-dimensional.
One thing where the book differs from Cussler's Pitt novels is there isn't the Bond-esque string of romantic conquests for the lead. That stuff seemed cool to Teenage Calvin, but feels a little silly looking back now. Here, Bell actually gets married aboard the Mauretania to his apparently long-time film director girlfriend, Marion. I'm mildly curious if she typically plays a big role in the plots of these books, or if the size of her part here was due to the focus on movies and filming.
'Isaac Bell spun on his heel, dove under the life net that concealed the trapdoor, and vaulted himself feetfirst through the opening. As his foot grazed the top rungs of the ladder, he pulled his throwing knife from his boot and, without wasting a step of his swift descent, flung it overarm at Christian Semmler's throat.'
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