Book Club

[lmt]

I've enjoyed his many, many books for well over 30 years. I'd never heard of Mr Cussler until an ex-boyfriend (back in 1988) gave me Raise the Titanic! to read. I was hooked after that.

My favorite character has always been Dirk Pitt. I've also enjoyed the Isaac Bell series that takes place in the early 1900's.

His literary fantasies and larger-than-life exploits swirled together for decades. He wrote 85 books, selling no fewer than 100 million copies, and located scores of shipwrecks.

The Mediterranean Caper, his first book starring his most famous creation, Dirk Pitt – a marine engineer, government agent and adventurer named after his then infant son – was published in 1973; Pitt would go on to star in 25 books.

His other heroes included detective Isaac Bell, husband-and-wife treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo, and Juan Cabrillo, an ex-CIA agent who leads a mysterious maritime crew for hire called The Corporation.

Frequently reimagining moments in history and myth, such as Abraham Lincoln being kidnapped instead of assassinated, or the existence of Atlantis, Cussler’s adventures mostly revolved around villains and heroes racing to track down long-lost artifacts or secret locations, setting the stage for later writers such as James Patterson and Dan Brown.

Cussler wrote himself and his loved ones into his novels. The author usually appeared as a helpful character who would give his hero some much-needed assistance or information, and whose identity was often not revealed until his protagonist mused over his strange name. His novel The Tombs sees a cameo from his first wife Barbara, while many significant events in his novels happened on his birthday, July 15.

An enthusiastic underwater explorer, Cussler also helped discover more than 60 shipwreck sites with his organization the National Underwater and Marine Agency, named after the fictional agency that employs Pitt. Numa finds include the RMS Carpathia, one of the first ships to come to the aid of Titanic survivors and the HL Hunley, the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy vessel, from the American civil war.

[ms traditional]

wow - he wrote some great books which i always gave as gifts with confidence to the male members of my family.   he left a nice legacy of tales for people who like a good adventure.

[chrystaltree]

Oh, that is so sad to hear.  I read many, many of his books over the years.  Not in the past few years but all of his more recent books are on my Amazon wishlist.  

[icezeus]

I was on a Clive Cussler kick several years ago, I really did enjoy his Dirk Pitt character, and then I just sort of wandered off to other books. 

RIP