The Demon of the Deep

The Demon of the Deep is the first novel in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest book series.

The novel is credited to "Brad Quentin", the pseudonym used for all the books in the series, but it was actually written by Terry Bisson.

Premise
Official synopsis from the back cover: "'THAT THING! IS THAT AN EYE?'

It's huge, cold, and slimy. And it's dragging them deeper and deeper into an unknown world far under the South Pacific, where gigantic crustaceans creep through dark chasms and mutant monsters lurk in lightless caverns.

Hadji and Dr. Benton Quest are trapped in the undersea lair of the most vicious predator ever known. It is awakening at last, and heading for the surface to feed -- and taking them with it!

Don't miss this new nonstop action adventure, as Jonny Quest races against time to rescue the Quest Team from an undersea nightmare!"

The Quest Team are cruising the ocean to photograph the giant squid for the first time. When Hadji and Dr Quest lose contact with the surface, Jonny goes to investigate. He finds them captives of an insane Nazi submarine commander who is unaware that World War II has been over for 50 years.

Plot summary
In the South Pacific aboard the Quest catamaran, the Quest Team head to the waters above Chatham Rise. They are hoping to get better images of giant squid, which have been spotted in the area by New Zealand fishermen. They admire a giant Ray that's trailing the catamaran. That evening, Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji discuss the dive planned for the following day.

The following morning, Dr. Quest and Hadji go down in the submersible The Belle of the Deep. At about 1400 feet down, a giant squid approaches the Belle. The squid, which is at least 50 feet long, begins to descend, and the Belle lowers as well to follow it. Jonny notices storm clouds in the distance, but Race reassures him that it's miles away. The Belle descends into warmer waters with luminescent sea life, presumably due to a volcanic vent. The squid goes into a cave, and as the Belle follows, another squid comes out and presses its large eyes to the glass of the Belle. The squid pulls the Belle into the cave, and they lose video and audio communication with the surface. The cable connecting the Belle to the catamaran continues to unwind until it reaches the end: 3000 feet, its maximum depth. With the Belle only having another two and a half hours, Jonny suits up in a deep diving suit to descend to help.

Jonny follows the cable down, and finds the cave where the Belle was last seen. As soon as Jonny enters, he loses communication with the surface and they can no longer track him with his suit's locator, which explains why they lost contact with the Belle. Jonny proceeds into the cave. Jonny hides in a cleft of the cave as a giant squid passes, heading back out. Jonny continues and finds the end of the cable, wedged under a rock and torn off. Jonny continues and the cave begins going up, and emerges within a huge undersea cavern. He finds the Belle, door open and empty, near a WWII German submarine. Through a porthole, Jonny sees his father and Hadji tied up, and a man waving a gun. To enter the ship quietly, Jonny goes underwater and enters through the torpedo tubes. He changes out of his deepsuit, which is difficult to move in outside of the water, and takes the jacket from the skeleton of a crewman to keep warm. When Jonny goes to enter the room to save his father and Hadji, the door sticks and Jonny stumbles in, losing the element of surprise. But the old man with the gun smiles and welcomes him.

The man, the Captain, announces that the two he has tied up are American spies, and he believes Jonny is his crewman. He has radioed SS Headquarters for confirmation that he can execute the "spies". The Captain leaves to check for messages from command, and Jonny unties Dr. Quest and Hadji, who tell him how they were knocked out and tied up. Jonny needs to play along because Captain Grimm is the only one who knows how to operate the sub, which is their chance to return to the surface. Before the Captain returns, they make it look like Dr. Quest and Hadji are still tied up with tape over their mouths. Topside, Jessie and Race prepare for the coming storm. Captain Grimm returns and prepares the submarine to dive. The submarine navigates through the underwater cave, but before it can get out, a giant squid drags it back into the cavern. The captain calls the squid the "demon of the deep", and apparently this happens every time the submarine tries to leave. Topside, the storm has hit the catamaran. Bandit is swept overboard, but Jessie and Race are able to pull him back in. Jonny gets an idea, and he replaces Hadji and Dr. Quest with skeletons from the crew, and dresses them in crewmen's jackets. The squid returns and looks through the porthole, and Jonny realizes how they can get out.

Jonny gets more jackets from deceased crewmen to use to cover the portholes and block the light from getting out. Dr. Quest speaks in German to the Captain, telling him they've intercepted a message from American shipping on the surface. They again dive, and the squid ignores them, allowing them to leave the cave. Topside, the storm has passed. They hear a beeping from the control board as Jonny's suit's locator comes back online. Jessie tries to make contact with Jonny through his deepsuit radio; he doesn't answer, but they can see that he's slowly coming back up to the surface. In the submarine, the Captain has Dr. Quest take over controls as he goes to investigate a strange noise, and Jonny goes after the Captain. He hears Jessie trying to make contact before the Captain destroys the radio. The Captain returns to the control room and tries to interrogate his prisoners: the two skeletons they used to replace Hadji and Dr. Quest. The Captain points his gun at each of them and "fires"; the gun just clicks, empty, but the Captain seems satisfied that he's executed them. Topside, they have a new problem: a supertanker is heading straight for them.

Dr. Quest continues to ascend the submarine. He can't follow the cable on the ship's old sonar, but he can follow the giant ray that's following the cable up. The Captain orders them to stop before surfacing to check out the surface with the periscope. Aboard the catamaran, Jessie and Race can't move the boat and the oncoming supertanker won't see them; Jessie is able to open radio communication, and Race speaks with the captain, who's an old Navy buddy of his, and the Supertanker can turn just enough in time to miss them by a hundred yards. On the submarine, the Captain see the supertanker through the periscope and runs out of the room. They're about a hundred yards from the catamaran. The Captain returns, gleefully telling them that he's disabled the engines and turned the ship into a nuclear weapon that will destroy the oncoming ship on impact.

In an attempt to stop a massive explosion, Dr. Quest blows the ballast, forcing the submarine to surface. The Quest team gets out. Jessie calls for them to jump since the supertanker can't turn. Bandit jumps over the side to swim out to them, towing an orange life preserver in his teeth. Jonny gets an idea and goes back into the submarine, and pulls the jackets off the portholes, letting the light out again. He gets his father and Hadji to jump with him, and they meet up with Bandit and swim back to the catamaran. As the supertanker approaches, about to run down the submarine, a giant squid surfaces, drawn once again to the light from the porthole. It wraps its tentacles around the submarine and pulls it back underwater, avoiding a collision and a nuclear explosion. Race and Jessie help the others get back aboard the catamaran.

The Quest catamaran heads for New Zealand, where scientists are waiting to review the footage they have of the giant squid. Dr. Quest and Race get out of a call with the United Nations, where they explained the situation with Captain Grimm and the Nazi U-boat, and their plans to seal the cave so that the nuclear submarine will remain undisturbed. They approach the coast of New Zealand.

Characters
Main:
 * Jonny Quest
 * Hadji Singh (written Hadji Bingh )
 * Jessie Bannon
 * Dr. Benton Quest
 * Race Bannon
 * Bandit

Antagonists:
 * Captain Grimm

Other:
 * Giant ray
 * Giant squid
 * Captain of the Petroleum Princess, an old friend of Race's from the Navy

Locations

 * South Pacific
 * Chatham Rise, a thousand feet underwater
 * Underwater cave and connecting cavern
 * New Zealand
 * San Francisco
 * Sydney
 * Singapore

Vehicles

 * Quest Catamaran
 * The Belle of the Deep, a submersible launch from the Quest Catamaran
 * U-232, a Nazi U-Boat, a nuclear-powered prototype submarine sent to help the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII
 * USS Constance, a sunken WWII troopship
 * Petroleum Princess, a supertanker

Notes/Trivia

 * The book consists of 14 chapters. It also has a scientific afterword written by Dr. Gregory Benford, Ph.D.
 * The events take place in January.
 * Hadji can't swim in this book.
 * Jessie's "greatest wish was to find the unicorn, which she was convinced really existed."
 * Hadji mentions the "caves of Malabar", which might be a reference to the fictional caves of Marabar in the novel and film A Passage to India, which are themselves based on the real Barabar Caves in India.
 * The Australian and North American release of the book share an ISBN. They can be told apart from minor differences on the covers: the North American version shows the price for U.S./CAN., and it's shown on both the back cover and on the spine; the Australia version shows the price for Aust on the back cover, and the price is not on the spine; the title on the spine in the North American version is centered, but it's aligned left on the Australian version.

Goofs

 * Jonny's name is misspelled as "Johnny" in chapter 10, on page 88.
 * The cover shows Race in a deep-sea diving suit, but Race doesn't go diving in the book; Jonny does.
 * The book mentions Race's history with the Navy and his expert naval abilities several times, but he apparently didn't know what "luminescent" meant in the context of ocean life.
 * The catamaran is stated to be 60 feet, but its official stats from other sources state that it's twice that: 120 feet.