Serpent is the first book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler

Clive Eric Cussler is an American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than seventeen times...

 and Paul Kemprecos

Paul Kemprecos

Paul Kemprecos is an American writer of mysteries and adventure stories. He is a Shamus Award-winning author of six underwater detective thrillers, and has been co-writing with Clive Cussler the "NUMA Files" novels, which focus on Kurt Austin, head of NUMA's Special Assignments Team and his...

, and was published in 1999. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin.

This is the first book with Cussler's new hero Kurt Austin.

The main plot is about a group of men who call themselves "The Brotherhood" and have ties to a 15th century religious order. The group in modern times has attempted to hide and destroy all evidence of pre-Columbian contact between the New and Old Worlds.

The book begins with the wrecking of the ships SS Andrea Doria

SS Andrea Doria

SS Andrea Doria[p] was an ocean liner for the Italian Line home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for its sinking in 1956, when 46 people died. Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and...

and MS Stockholm and moves to modern times with gun fights and chases from Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 and Washington DC to Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. The introduction of replacements for Dirk Pitt

Dirk Pitt

Dirk Pitt is a fictional character, the protagonist of a series of bestselling adventure novels written by Clive Cussler. The name Dirk Pitt is a registered trademark of Clive Cussler.-Character information and the supporting cast:...

and his sidekick does not change Cussler's plot.