Somali Pirates

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.

It was just another day on the job for 53-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, a United States-flagged cargo ship that was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship.

Quantum Storm is a riveting tale of adventure, technology, and intrigue on the high seas. When Kobayashi Advanced Technologies' quantum device, capable of revolutionizing global communication, sinks with the ship Hikari Maru, it's up to Alex Storm and his Deep Sea Recovery team to brave the dangers of the Somali EEZ and recover it. Battling Somali pirates, navigating through the Suez Canal, and diving into the depths of the ocean, they uncover more than just the lost technology. With the fate of global communication in their hands, they must outwit adversaries and overcome their own fears ...