Clive Cussler, million-selling adventure writer, dies at 88

[Dennis Donovan]

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/clive-cussler-adventure-novelist-dies-88-arizona-69237023


This 2007 image released by G.P. Putnam's Sons shows author Clive Cussler riding in a classic car. Cussler died on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020 at his home in Scottsdale, AZ. He was 88. (Ronnie Bramhall/G.P. Putnam's Sons via AP)

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer

February 26, 2020, 2:22 PM

NEW YORK -- Clive Cussler, the million-selling adventure writer and real-life thrill-seeker who wove personal details and spectacular fantasies into his page-turning novels about underwater explorer Dirk Pitt, has died, his publisher said Wednesday.

Cussler died Monday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, said Alexis Welby, spokeswoman for publisher Penguin Random House. He was 88. The cause was not disclosed.

Cussler dispatched Pitt and pal Al Giordino on exotic missions highlighted by shipwrecks, treachery, espionage and beautiful women, in popular works including "Cyclops,'' “Night Probe!” and his commercial breakthrough, "Raise the Titanic!"

Cussler was an Illinois native who was raised in Southern California and lived in Arizona for most of his final years, but he sent Pitt around the globe in plots that ranged from the bold to the incredible. "The Treasure" features an aspiring Aztec despot who murders an American envoy, the hijacking of a plane carrying the United Nations secretary-general and soldiers from ancient Rome looting the Library of Alexandria. In "Iceberg," the presidents of French Guiana and the Dominican Republic are the ones in danger, during a visit to Disneyland. In "Sahara," a race across the desert somehow leads to new information about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

</snip>

Good writer and fascinating guy. Cross gently, Clive...

[In_The_Wind]

1. I'll miss his books.

[riversedge]

2. I have read many of them. Love them. can't put them down

once I start. This was maybe 10 years ago--I was on a run.

[In_The_Wind]

4. I think I've read all of them. Some more than once.

[Brother Buzz]

3. His books were always fun fast reads, and I assume his son will continue cranking them out.

I'll always associate Clive Cussler with his respectable, albeit esoteric car collection (one was almost always featured on the dust jackets of his novels):

https://www.cusslermuseum.com/autos

[Liberal In Texas]

5. I used to like him, went to several book signings.

Went off him when it was pretty obvious he wasn't actually writing the books anymore.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was when I read he hosted a fund-raiser at his home for Jan Brewer in Arizona.

[riversedge]

6. oh drats. I did not want to know that.

[Liberal In Texas]

8. I have several shelves full of hardbacks.

The first signed one was "Night Probe" which was the first book after "Raise the Titanic" and when I went to the bookstore he was just standing around, no lines or anything, and had a fairly lengthy conversation with him, mostly about Jack Grimm and his search for the Titanic wreck. (This was way before Ballard's discovery.)

I think that as time went on and he became wealthy, and that like so many that do, he turned into a staunch conservative. His writing chops started to suffer too and after I read the news item about his hosting the Brewer fund-raiser I stopped buying and reading any of his books.


Cussler


Grimm

[ChazII]

7. Scottsdale

is a good place to live and in his case pass away. His writing will be missed.