Welshrogue

Mysterious earthquakes are destroying oil facilities around the world as Dirk Pitt gets involved in the kidnapping of an oil exploration team.

I remember a time when a Clive Cussler book was unputdownable, exciting, and always enjoyable. Those times have moved on and instead what you have is a slow, average sort of a tale. Yes it still has Dirk Pitt but its lost the magic of the early books. Part of the problem is that Dirk Pitt now has a son and daughter, who detract from the main story and still have an air of ‘look what we just made up’ about them, their whole introduction being more than a little silly and unbelievable.

I can understand the idea behind Dirk Pitt with kids. After all, Clive Cussler is now writing books with his son, Dirk, and there is a kind of symmetry about it but it just doesn’t work if the kids suddenly appear. If they had been slowly introduced over time, this wouldn’t have been a problem but the whole surprise appearance at the end of a book a few novels ago was just a little too fantastic to be taken seriously.

Another part of the problem is that it feels like the main characters have aged and rather than out adventuring, should be wearing Depends and drinking prune juice. Rather than letting the legacy of Dirk Pitt fade into mediocrity, I hope that he will be retired and a new fresh faced exciting character will take over. The world of Dirk Pitt has been crafted and with NUMA all setup, all it needs is someone else to take over the torch to keep the flame of excitement alight.

Disappointing book considering its a Cussler, otherwise its an OK novel.

Tags: Book, Clive Cussler, Crescent Dawn, Dirk Cussler, Dirk Pitt, New York Times, Shopping, United States

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Book Review 2007, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.