Clive Cussler

Undersea adventurer Dirk Pitt faces the toughest challenge of his life when he plunges into a deadly sea zone to rescue the gigantic Starbuck, America's nuclear arsenal, while battling deep-sea assassins.

a novel

Pacific vortex!

Kirsten Simkiss

I feel like this is more a 2.5 star book than a 2, but considering the other books I read by Clive Cussler (including other Dirk Pitt books) were far better, I rounded down on this one. It was really a kind of disappointing start to the series, if I'm honest. This book is clearly very early in his writing career and, having been written in the '80s, lacks a lot of the social graces of his newer books. Dirk Pitt is about as far from a gentleman as you can get. Once you get down to the actual bones of the story, it's really not bad.

My biggest complaint about the book is that the characters' actions are illogical. For instance, Dirk Pitt, at the very beginning of the book, dives out into the surf for something yellow just because. He goes straight into a rip current for a bit of yellow jetsam. Rip currents that are briefly explained to regularly kill people. Being an agent of NUMA, you would think that he would know better. It serves the plot, but it makes absolutely no sense. This is pretty much just the author trying to demonstrate how macho his character is. It continues later as well. Somehow the entire Navy unit looking for their nuclear submarine fails to notice that the coordinates they're searching for, rumored to have sunk 30 ships in the past 30 years, has no ships on the bottom at all. I mean, this unit should have been prepared to pick the sub out from between wrecks and they found nothing, but no one seems to recognize this. Then, as if by magic logic, Dirk Pitt figures out exactly where the Pacific Vortex really is despite that he has no real evidence to back up his claim. He pretty much says, "They say it's here, northeast, so obviously it has to be the opposite, in the southwest." Dude. It's the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is massive. Guess work shouldn't cut it. Yet, somehow, it did. It continues somewhat after that, but the logic jumps he makes are less obviously pulled out of thin air.

I haven't even mentioned the female representation yet. Where do I even begin with that? To start with, there are a total of three named female characters. None of them are spared being ogled and harassed by Dirk Pitt, who seems to think himself charming. The first character, Adrian Hunter, is pretty much trash talked to her face by Dirk for sleeping her way around the Navy. The next girl, later revealed to be Summer, tries to kill him in the beginning of the book. After he jokingly tells her that he raped her just to get a rise out of her (to be clear, he didn't) after she tried to kill him with a hypodermic needle filled with deadly poison, she somehow falls in love with him over the course of the storyline. Why? I have no earthly idea. Oh, and the third girl? She's only really mentioned as being in one scene. She brings Dirk coffee and he runs his hand up the back of her stocking to tease her. In her place of work. I would have decked the guy.

Charming, this fellow is NOT.

Cussler obviously tried to go for Indiana Jones and James Bond type stories here, and with the plot I feel he succeeded. However, the main character and the illogical conclusions he comes to to jump start the plot really bit this one in the bud for me.

I would recommend reading another book first. This is very clearly not the best this author has to offer and you can get along just fine without reading this one. I'm personally very glad I read other books of his first.

Pacific vortex! a novel

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