Corsair

Corsair by Clive Cussler and Jack DuBrul

I really, really wanted to like this book.  So far, Clive Cussler has only managed to disappoint me with his “Oregon Files” series, which this one falls under.  He “co-authored” one of these that I’ve read with DuBrul, and the other with a guy named Craig Dirgo.  I put “co-authored” in parenthesis because a large part of me believes that Cussler had very little to do with any of these books.  I think the Cussler name is stuck on to generate more book sales.  Probably an accountant’s move.  Well, it works in terms of sales, but not in terms of quality.  At least not for this reviewer.

The actual setting for this story isn’t too bad.  We start off with a prologue to the story, in true Cussler fashion, of a time centuries ago.  I believe the late 1700s.  I won’t go into details, but if you’ve read anything by Cussler, you know the drill.  Then, we flash forward to present day Libya. Archeologists are searching for some artifacts described in the prologue, while at the same time, the U.S. Secretary of State is traveling to Libya for some sort of peace conference.  Sadly, her plane crashes killing her and everyone on board.  Or so it seems.

Enter Juan Cabrillo, captain of the Oregon ship.  His team of mercenaries get involved in both of these situations, that somehow get tied together between the pages of the story.  There’s a lot of clandestine modern day terrorists that the Oregon crew must unveil and expose. Of course, all of this must be done under the radar because of who they are.

All of this has the makings of a great story.  The main problem here is that the author (who I really think is DuBrul, not Cussler) really can’t seem  to make it very interesting.  There’s a lot of action in this book, but very little adventure.  It’s very easy to simply skim through the multitude of chapters that describe a particular battle between the good guys and the bad guys and not feel that you’re missing anything.  It takes the author about three chapters to describe one, drawn out action sequence.  Although the descriptions are good and well written, there really isn’t anything at all that would make one remember the heroics or imagination of a Dirk Pitt, a Kurt Austin, or an Isaac Bell.  Sometimes you wish the author would take the 50 pages that he devotes to each action scene in the book and replace it with two or three sentences.  He could simply say: “The good guys and the bad guys got into a fight at the prison camp.  The good guys won”.  This would hold my interest a lot better then the endless descriptions of guns, jeeps, bizarre combat vehicles, and boxcars that tend to fly off cliffs into the sea.  I just never cared.

Juan Cabrillo and his crew (there’s about 10 or 12 “regulars” on the Oregon) really don’t add anything to the story either.  Yes, they all have unique jobs and personalities, but they’re all really too mundane to provide you with any real interest.  This book reads like a low budget action film that has lots of explosions etc., but very little story.  One wishes that Cussler would get a bit more involved in the Oregon Files books, and tweak these stories a bit.  They really do have some potential.