Raise The Titanic! by Clive Cussler

Synopsis :

The President's secret task force develops the ultimate defensive weapon.  At its core : byzanium, a radioactive element so rare sufficient quantities have never been found. But a frozen American corpse on a desolate Soviet mountainside, a bizarre mining accident in Colorado, and a madman's dying message lead Dirk Pitt to a secret cache of byzanium.  Now he begins his most thrilling, daunting mission - to raise from its watery grave the shipwreck of the century!

In a daring gamble, Dirk Pitt locates the Titanic - and suddenly his crew is in deadly jeopardy.  Sabotaged by Russian spies and savage storms.  Pit must stop a diabolical plan for Soviet world supremacy - or see the mighty Titanic blasted out of existence!

RMS Titanic - the British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning of 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US.  RMS Titanic - the most famous ship in history which has inspired many books, movies, songs, etc with the many interesting storyline that can be woven from.  In this book by Clive Cussler, he decided to wove the story from the perspective of the cold war the American had with the Russian and at the core (pun intended) of the story, a mineral known as the byzanium.

My impression is that in actual fact finding the byzanium is the story.  The Titanic is just a means to an end.  The story is that the last of the byzanium is hidden in a vault inside the Titanic and that is how and why Dirk Pitt gets to rise the Titanic.

I felt a bit cheated as having the Titanic as the title, I wanted more of the ship, in every way possible, from the exploration of the ship in it's dark, cold silent watery grave to the story of the people who survived the sinking (the focus was just on one of such persons). I wanted more of how the ship would be after it's resurrection.  I wanted Dirk to discover each and every dark mysterious nook of the grand old dame.

But what I got was a relatively good Dirk Pitt's thriller (my all time favourite of Dirk's adventure is Atlantis Found) but the Titanic wasn't the hero in this story so for that it was kinda of a let down.  That aside, if you are a fan of cold war, you would be rather happy to immerse yourself in this book.