The Spy

The Spy - Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

For years, the names Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt were synonymous with thrills and high engaging adventures.  Then, at some point, Cussler decided to let his hero age somewhat, and the newer Dirk Pitt books featured our hero married to a Congresswoman and he had two adult twin children that were running around solving adventures with Dad.  I dunno, but by that point the series simply lost something for me.  Around this same time, Cussler started co-authoring multiple books focusing on new heroes/heroines/both.   Let’s see, there’s the NUMA files, the Oregon files, the Fargo Adventures, and the Isaac Bell series.   Sadly, only one of these tends to really be as thrilling as early Clive Cussler for me, and that’s the Isaac Bell series.

This is Isaac’s third adventure (the first was written by Cussler solo, the second, like this one, is co-authored with Justin Scott), and I must say that I really enjoy these books.  Cussler wisely places his hero in the past by a century or so – taking place in the early 1900s.  This helps differentiate these stories from all the other Cussler adventures being written.  Isaac Bell is a fabulously wealthy, dashing, hunkish, intelligent detective who works for the Van Dorn detective agency.  The guy can do no wrong.  In addition to be being fabulously reliant and handsome, he has an equally beautiful fiancé that appears from time to time within the stories.  These books, like all hero-centered adventure books, tend to focus on some “really big crime” for our hero to solve, while being placed in incredible danger and harm.

The main actor in this story is the dreadnought battleship.  This was THE weapon of the future around 1908, and although World War I was still six years away, those who knew better knew that it was only a matter of time before a great war between many would breakout.  So spies are trying to sabotage this new weapon.  Strange events happen, beautiful women appear, bizarre accidents occur, Bell miraculously rescues a beautiful woman, key people are not who they seem, explosions are stopped at the last minute, and there are even more beautiful women.

This sounds like I’m being crass, and perhaps I am, but the absurdity of the story doesn’t really take away from my enjoyment.  It’s simply fun to read about the amazingly infallible detective and how he’s able to put together complex puzzles that lead him slowly closer to solving a baffling conundrum while narrowly escaping death, racing across the country in a fabulous new roadster, or being thrown off a train (yet not hurting himself because he crashes into a sheep).

This story had a bit too many people within the pages.  It could be a bit challenging to keep everyone’s identity safely compartmentalized in my brain, but I really did enjoy myself while reading the book.  It’s also nice to know that there really is life for Cussler after Dirk Pitt. Even though Pitt, according to Cussler anyway, really isn’t quite through.  I had a lot of fun with this, and every other Isaac Bell book I’ve read so far.