It’s been a while since I’ve tried to tackle another Isaac Bell Adventure. I find that for this series in particular, I’ve really got to be in the mood for the turn-of-the-century style of story-telling. That’s my average daily mood!

Mainly, I feel that Clive Cussler writes with a 1950s recollection of how folks talked and behaved forty years prior, keeping it exaggerated and flashy. When I read books from the first two decades of the twentieth century, however, I never get the same feel. The difference is almost as strong as that between The Great Gatsby novel and the film by the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio. While they follow the same story-line, in a way, one is just a bit too much over-the-top. That’s how I feel when reading this series.

This particular tale fell in line nicely with another concurrent read of mine, The Great Influenza, which traces the pandemic of 1918 and made me feel a bit at home in the story. It reminds me of reading of Isaac Bell and his darling narrowly escaping the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 at roughly the same time I read A Crack in the Edge of the World.

In Bootlegger (Book 7), Isaac Bell finds himself chasing a Russian gang of revolutionaries in New York and Detroit who seek to use Prohibition as a way to turn the masses against their government. Once Joseph van Dorn himself is shot and very nearly killed, Bell lets this caper become personal.

This story involves machine guns and speed boats, train tunnels and spies, making it very much a Cussler tale and at least enjoyable in that regard. I admit that I read it much more quickly than I have the other Bell books, which is good, but I think that fact is also setting me up for disappointment regarding the next installment, The Assassin. I don’t want to dive into it, only to lull halfway through it again. Maybe he’ll include something super unique in the next one that’ll keep me engaged. Just maybe.

©2019 E.T.

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