Night Probe! was published by Bantam Books in 1981. The premise is vintage Cussler: in 1914, on the eve of World War I, Britain secretly agreed to sell Canada to the United States in exchange for financial support for the war effort. Two copies of the North American Treaty were dispatched — one aboard a train crossing a bridge over the St. Lawrence River (which collapsed, sending the train to the bottom), and the other aboard the RMS Dorado, a liner torpedoed by a U-boat in the Atlantic.
In 1989 (the novel’s “present”), the United States is in the grip of an energy crisis, and the discovery that Canada was legally American territory would give the U.S. access to vast Canadian oil and mineral resources. Pitt is tasked with recovering the treaties from both wrecks — a double salvage operation complicated by Canadian agents, British intelligence, and a Quebec separatist conspiracy.
Cussler’s research into early twentieth-century Anglo-American relations provides the historical backbone, and while the specific treaty is fictional, the geopolitical dynamics are plausible: Britain’s desperate financial situation in 1914 and the intense behind-the-scenes negotiation between London and Washington are well documented. The dual salvage structure — one wreck in a river, one in the deep Atlantic — gives Cussler two distinct underwater sequences, each with its own challenges.
Collecting Night Probe!
First edition (Bantam Books, New York, 1981): Mass market paperback.
Market values:
- First edition paperback, fine: $10–$25
- First hardcover (Book Club): $5–$15
- Signed later editions: $30–$80