Cussler's more recent books are better. Sometime over the course of writing these Dirk Pitt books he realized that his plots are rather silly and decided to play up the the sillier aspects of them. The Mediterranean Caper is almost straight up spy thriller and drug smuggling mystery. In it, Dirk Pitt is much younger, much less suave and still relying on his father's reputation than the one he's earned over the course of his career.

This book is the most misogynistic thing I have ever read. While the plot was passable, the characters were thin and uninspired. But, more than anything, the main character, Dirk Pitt, has absolutely nothing good in his personality. There is a scene early in the book where he meets a beautiful woman on the beach. After asking if she’s single, she starts crying a bit about her husband dying in a racing accident 9 years prior. So he SLAPS HER ACROSS THE FACE and tells her she belongs to every man who has ever admired her and wants to posses her. They have sex about two paragraphs later. The book continues in this usual sexist fashion, throwing out nuggets of pure male idiocy. I feel sorry for Clive Cussler’s wife if this book is a reflection of Cussler’s beliefs about women. The plot was far fetched and ultimately not as horrible as it could have been. However, it depended on Dirk being an absolute asshole to all persons of authority during the course of the book. I definitely do not recommend this book.