In Shock Wave, Dirk Pitt meets the most intriguing and sinister villain of his adventurous and legendary career - a billionaire Australian diamond king with three beautiful Amazon daughters - in a conflict that is waged above and below the sea for the survival of vast numbers of sea creatures an more than a million human beings. In 1856, a British clipper ship sinks after a storm while transporting convicts to an Australian penal colony. After horrible carnage on a raft, the pitiful survivors, among them Betsy Fletcher and Jess Dorsett, are washed up on a solitary tropical island, where they discover an immense source of diamonds and found a powerful and wealthy dynasty. One hundred forty years later, Maeve Fletcher, on of their descendants, is stranded on an island in Antarctica with a party of passengers after their cruise ship seemingly abandons them.