To anyone who has ever read Clive Cussler‘s Deep Six before—be it only yesterday or when it was hot off the presses 31 years ago—I ask this simple question: “What image from this tale has been most imprinted onto your brain for all these years?”
[Spoiler alert] Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I bet, the answer would involve the book’s final scene, when hero Dirk Pitt shoves a little old Korean lady and her wheelchair down an empty, hundred-story elevator shaft. What a shocker!
Not too many authors risk tarnishing their lead character’s reputation by involving him in such shenanigans, but by now—by the end of Book 7 in the Dirk Pitt Adventures—it seems that Cussler has simply resigned himself to recording the laissez-faire attitude his hero brings to the plots—even when he’s killing the villain. It’s as if Dirk Pitt has finally grown into a tangible person, and faithful readers like me are now able to sense in the air his predictably unpredictable behavior making scenes like this—while shocking—not all that surprising.
Deep Six is Cussler’s first book of many since Pacific Vortex! whose plot dips dangerously into the “ridiculous” category, involving such plot points as kidnapping the President (along with the next three in line for the Presidency) and brain manipulation via implanted micro-transmitters. The Russians are again to blame, this time with help from a greedy Korean family, though this story is set in the late 80s, right when the USSR actually fell.
What makes this particular book interesting is the introduction of a few long-time characters that all fans eventually grow to love. St. Julien Pearlmutter, the 400-pound gourmand who owns the world’s largest collection maritime history books, enters this story in order to give Dirk Pitt a hand in unraveling a maritime mystery. Hiram Jaeger also appears, the pony-tail-wearing hippie who’s a wiz at the computer, though this early on in the Cussler universe, he must use his brain a whole lot more than his advanced processor.
Lauren Smith also joins the tale again, this time as a curious and determined congresswoman who just can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble. Her “on again, off again affair with Dir Pitt” hasn’t seemed to have hurt her political career at all, and I think that now we’ll start seeing a whole lot more of her.
Overall, I enjoyed this tale. I’m just getting a little leery of the upcoming books, which I know are going to venture even deeper into the ridiculous (1990s), before scratching the belly of the just-plain-dumb (2000s), and then finally getting back into the fantastic (2010s). That’s not a hard-fast rule of course, and I might be mistaken, but it’s what my recollection of having read these books within the past decade tells me. Hope I’m wrong!
Next up in the Dirk Pitt line: Cyclops.
©2017 E.T.
Read More from Clive Cussler:
Dirk Pitt Adventures:
1. Pacific Vortex! (1983)
2. The Mediterranean Caper (1973)
3. Iceberg (1975)
4. Raise the Titanic! (1976)
5. Vixen 03 (1978)
6. Night Probe! (1981)
7. Deep Six (1984)
8. Cyclops (1986)
9. Treasure (1988)
10. Dragon (1990)
11. Sahara (1992)
12. Inca Gold (1994)
13. Shock Wave (1996)
14. Flood Tide (1997)
15. Atlantis Found (1999)
16. Valhalla Rising (2001)
17. Trojan Odyssey (2003)
18. Black Wind (2004)
19. Treasure of Khan (2006)
20. Arctic Drift (2008)
21. Crescent Dawn (2010)
22. Poseidon’s Arrow (2012)
23 Havana Storm (2014)
24. Odessa Sea (2016)
25. Celtic Empire (2018)
Isaac Bell Adventures:
1. The Chase (2007)
2. The Wrecker (2009)
3. The Spy (2010)
4. The Race (2011)
5. The Thief (2012)
6. The Striker (2013)
7. The Bootlegger (2014)
8. The Assassin (2015)
9. The Gangster (2016)
10. The Cutthroat (2017)
11. The Titanic Secret (2019)
12. The Saboteurs (2021)
Kids:
1. The Adventures of Vin Fiz (2006)
2. The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy (2010)
Nonfiction:
1. The Sea Hunters (1996)
2. The Sea Hunters II (2002)
3. Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (1998)
4. Silent Killer: Submarines and Underwater Warfare (2011)
5. Built for Adventure (2011)
6. Built to Thrill (2016)
NUMA Files:
1. Serpent (1999)
2. Blue Gold (2000)
3. Fire Ice (2002)
4. White Death (2003)
5. Lost City (2004)
6. Polar Shift (2005)
7. The Navigator (2007)
8. Medusa (2009)
9. Devil’s Gate (2011)
10. The Storm (2012)
11. Zero Hour (2013)
12. Ghost Ship (2014)
13. The Pharaoh’s Secret (2015)
14. Nighthawk (2017)
15. The Rising Se (2018)
16. Sea of Greed (2019)
17. Journey of the Pharaohs (2020)
18. Fast Ice (2021)
19. Dark Vector (2022)
20. Condor’s Fury (2023)
21. Desolation Code (2024)
Oregon Files:
1. Golden Buddha (2003)
2. Sacred Stone (2005)
3. Dark Watch (2005)
4. Skeleton Coast (2006)
5. Plague Ship (2008)
6. Corsair (2009)
7. The Silent Sea (2010)
8. The Jungle (2011)
9. Mirage (2013)
10. Piranha (2015)
11. The Emperor’s Revenge (2017)
12. Typhoon Fury (2017)
13. Shadow Tyrants (2018)
14. The Final Option (2019)
15. Marauder (2020)
Fargo Adventures:
1. Spartan Gold (2009)
2. The Lost Empire (2010)
3. The Kingdom (2011)
4. The Tombs (2012)
5. The Mayan Secrets (2013)
6. The Eye of Heaven (2014)
7. The Solomon Curse (2015)
8. Pirate (2016)
9. The Romanov Ransom (2017)
10. The Gray Ghost (2018)
11. The Oracle (2019)
12. Wrath of Poseidon (2020)
13. The Serpent’s Eye (2025)