The Thief – by Clive Cussler
Clive Cussler’s Isaac Bell novels (co-written
with Justin Scott) have brought a new level of excitement to me that I felt
died quite some time ago with the Dirk Pitt novels. I felt that Cussler’s Dirk Pitt was a class A
adventure hero for the first dozen books or so, but after he got married and
started involving his twin adult children into the newer novels, the stories
lost something for my tastes. Cussler has co-authored many different series of
books with many different authors, and most don’t do much for me. Isaac Bell is the exception.
Like Dirk Pitt, Isaac Bell is a swashbuckling
lady’s hero of a guy. He’s a private detective working for the Van Dorn
Detective Agency around the 1910s. The fact that these books take place 100
years or so in the past is kind of what makes them so refreshing. This detail
adds quite a few elements that help separate Bell from Pitt (something that
Cussler’s ‘NUMA Files’ books couldn’t do).
Also, it probably goes without saying, but Isaac Bell can do no
wrong. He’s handsome, smart, can hold
his own in a fight, while all managing to be quite the gentleman. He’s also fabulously wealthy due to an
inheritance, so he’s constantly flicking out $10 gold pieces to strangers as
the Easter Bunny would toss candy to children.
Yes, Isaac Bell is a tad unbelievable, but that’s what great stories are
supposed to do; allow the reader to suspend their disbelief and enjoy the ride.
To be fair though, after five
installments now of Bell (only the 4th I’ve read), even this formula
feels a bit tedious at times. The plot
is quite well-thought out and interesting. It seems as though an inventor has
figured out a way to produce motion pictures where viewers can see the action
AND clearly hear the action and dialogue as well! It might seem as though this a bit trivial,
but this technology was unheard of in the 1910s and, to be honest, many thought
unnecessary. Well, it seems as though Kaiser
Wilhelm’s Germany sees this idea as a masterful way to inject propaganda on the
masses. Such a tool could be used for marketing purposes that can help Germany
conquer the world!
An inventor that has a prototype of
this device is nearly kidnapped by some German thugs on a ship bound to America
from England. Since Isaac Bell is on the ship and thwarts the crime, Bell
becomes heavily involved. The fact that
his sweetheart (whom he hopes to soon wed) is ‘in the picture business’
herself, only adds to the story. It’s quite nice that the reader gets a healthy
primer on motion pictures and the business as it existed during its infancy. We
even get to meet such notables as Thomas Edison and D.W. Griffith.
Still, though, once the plot has
thickened and the action starts to cripple the capers, I found myself losing
interest. I’ve just seen and read all of this so many times before. There’s
also a high level of unbelievability in many of the scenes. Now, I’ve already mentioned that Bell is
pretty ‘unbelievable’, but we’re talking about a larger than life
character. What I didn’t like in this
book where times when people ‘knew they were being watched’ because of a
feeling they had. Or the fact that the Van Dorn Detective agency seemed to have
hundreds of detectives scattered all over the globe that were all being called
in at a moment’s notice to somehow drop everything in order to help Isaac Bell.
Still, though, the book was mostly fun
to read. Whenever an author only has one type of book that they write, you
really can’t be surprised if you find yourself not as excited as when the author
first started writing these books more than 40 years prior.
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