Clive Cussler has been one of the world leader authors for more than 40 years. His records currently include 19 New York Times best sellers with 125 million books published in over 100 countries in 40 languages.

The Dirk Pitt Novels

Theses were Clive Cussler’s first series of books and they are still his most popular today. It may be like popcorn for the mind sometimes but these books have every thing you could ever wish for from a fast paced action adventure novel. They follow the exploits of the hero with the odd name Dirk Pitt¹ the Special Projects Director for NUMA which is not a strange internet craze but is actually the fictional marine equivalent of NASA. NUMA short for the National Underwater and Marine Agency² is responsible for protecting and exploring the worlds oceans, seas and waterways they carry out scientific research and advise the government on all marine matters. A typical scenario would be the story opening with the back story about some mystery or event that happened years ago and will crop up at some point later in the novel. The book will generally move on to Dirk Pitts latest NUMA project being interrupted as ha is forced to rescue some people from a calamity, that’s usually caused by the chief villain. Dirk will then proceed to slowly unravel the villains plans in a some what James Bond style. The end result like in all good action stories, sees Pitt saving the world and usually gets the girl too!

The Books

The Mediterranean Caper (Published in 1973)
The first book Clive published in the US was actually given a different title for its UK publishing where it was called Mayday.

Iceberg (Published in 1975)
Dirk Pitt discovers a ship entombed inside an Iceberg leading him to unearth a plot to destabilise the worlds economy.

Raise the Titanic! (Published in 1976)
This book was written before Robert Ballards discovery of the wreck of the famous ocean liner in it Dirk Pitt gets caught up in a race against time to locate the ship and raise the Titanic back to the surface.

Vixen 03 (Published in 1978)
Dirk Pitt discovers the wreck of a an aircraft that was lost whilst flying a stop-secret operation to transport a deadly biological agent.

Night Probe! (Published in 1981)
In perhaps one of the most ridiculous plots in a Cussler book Dirk Pitt learns that British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith sold Canada to the US government in 1914, however the documents detailing the sale were lost and Numa are tasked with recovering them and merging the US and Canada into one country the United States of Canada!

Pacific Vortex! (Published in 1983)
Although not published until 1983 this was actually the first Dirk Pitt story Clive Cussler wrote. It was very crude and remained unpublished until Cussler’s publisher Bantam Books realised he had a ‘mostly’ finished manuscript just sat on his shelf at home. They obviously jumped at the chance of another book so Clive re-wrote it and the book was finally published 19 years after it was originally written. The plot centres around the search for a missing prototype nuclear submarine whilst Pitt falls for the daughter of the evil genius.

Deep Six (Published in 1984)
When the President of the US is kidnapped Dirk Pitt becomes the man to save the country from a Soviet plot and a mad man with a deadly biological weapon.

Cyclops (Published in 1986)
In typical Cussler fashion, Dirk Pitt must stop the Space Shuttle crashing, prevent an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro and find the legendary treasure of El Dorado...all whilst drinking Don Julio Tequila with salt and lime

Treasure (Published in 1988)
Dirk Pitt is on a race against time to discover the legendary Library of Alexandria all the time dodging the attempts on his life by a would be Aztec dictator.

Dragon (Published in 1990)
This time around Pitt is in Japan trying to prevent a maniac setting off nuclear bombs hidden in cars located at strategic positions all over the grand old US of A

Sahara (Published in 1992)
The one Dirk Pitt book to be given the full Hollywood treatment is classic Cussler, environmental disasters, crazy African dictators, maniacal billionaires and a lost Civil War Ironclad. Its just such a shame that Hollywood left out some of the real Cussler leaps of the fantasy.

Inca Gold (Published in 1994)
Pitt discovers the remains of a ship captured by Sir Francis Drake in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. The discovery of which leads him to an ancient Incan treasure.

Shock Wave (Published in 1996)
It happens to everyone they say…Pitt falls in love with Maeve Dorsett the daughter of a billionaire, but of course nothing goes to plan as it turns out the billionaire is a maniac with a diabolical plan...AGAIN

Flood Tide (Published in 1997)
Dirk Pitt gets up to all sorts of high jinks rescuing illegal immigrants from an evil Chinese warlord.

Atlantis Found (Published in 1999)
A mysterious chamber is found that seems to point to the location of a lost continent, who else is on hand to foil the tomb raiders but Dirk Pitt. Of course he’s now on a collision course with the bad guys to discover the legendary lost continent and the origins of civilisation.

Valhalla Rising (Published in 2001)
This time around Pitt is up against evil industrialist with plans on monopolising the world oil and gas reserves. In an interesting twist to other action heroes Pitt’s past comes back to bite him. Perhaps unsurprisingly for the man who always gets the girl Pitt appears to have fathered two long lost and now grown up children! However the kids turn out to be a chip off the old block and help their dad save the world.

Trojan Odyssey (Published in 2003)
The books start to get confusing now as Dirk Pitt is joined by his son Dirk Pitt junior and his daughter Summer join in with Dirk and Al’s adventures. It can actually get difficult at times to work out which Dirk Cussler is talking about. The plot centres on more fiendish criminal masterminds with the backdrop of Homers Odyssey this time.

Black Wind (Published in 2004)
Is poor old Clive finally feeling his age? This was the first Pitt novel to be co-author by his son Dirk Cussler and coincidently Dirk Pitt also gets the chance to settle down and retire like all good heroes should…however luckily for the readers he has a son also called Dirk Pitt who can take up his old mans mantle and save the world again. This time against dastardly villains intent on recovering a deadly virus stored onboard two lost World War II era Japanese kamikaze submarines!

The Treasure of Kahn (Published in 2006)
Its fossil fuels again as a Mongolian Warlord attempts to take control of the world’s petroleum market. Luckily Dirk Pitt is the man to stop him and discover the Kublai Khan's tomb on Hawaii along the way!

Main Characters

Dirk Pitt

Dirk Pitt is Cussler’s main hero, with his trademark black hair, craggy features and deep green eyes Pitt is very much the hero. Pitt is the Special Projects Director at NUMA responsible for arranging the various activities that NUMA gets involved in. He therefore is usually right in place for the adventure to unfold around him. At times he's quite a complex character, in the early books he's quite a womaniser and chauvinist, this mellows in the later books first when he loses the love of his life Summer Moran and later whilst dating Congress Women Loren Smith. Dirk is an accomplished diver and will not be found without his trusty orange faced Doxa diving watch. Pitt lives in a converted aircraft hanger on a corner of Washington’s Dulles Airport in which he contains his classic car collection³ and some items he's collected from around the world on his adventures.

Al Giordino

Al is Dirk Pitts life long best friend and Assistant Special Projects Director at NUMA. They met at high school and when on to join the air force together. When Dirk left the air force to join the newly created NUMA Al typically stack with his friend and joined NUMA to be Pitt’s right hand man. Al is a short and stocky guy with traditional Italian looks, he's immensely strong but has a gentle soul and when he's not up to his arms trying to fix machinery he's dropping a wise crack to lighten a dark situation. What ever the fix that Dirk finds him self in Al is likely to be their standing resolute next to him.

Admiral Sandecker

James Sandecker is the head of NUMA and Dirk Pitts boss. An ex-captain of a missile frigate Sandecker is a hard grafting boss regularly fighting the bureaucrats in Washington to get funding for NUMA's projects. He regularly drops Pitt and Giordino into tough situation but is immensely proud of them and their achievements and wilt stand up for them whatever the situation. With a shock of red hair and a trimmed Van Dyke beard Sandecker is a resolute bachelor living in an expensive Brownstone house in D.C. He works from his office on the NUMA buildings top floor where he keeps his hidden supply of especially rolled Cigars, a supply which Giordino always manages to infiltrate without Sandecker knowledge and much to his chagrin

Rudi Gunn


Admiral Sandecker’s right hand man Rudi Gunn is the second in command at NUMA and comes across as a bit of a bespectacled nerd. He’s a good guy though so has occasionally ended up in the thick of it as well were he’s proved himself a tough operator just like Dirk and Al. Well respected by the duo Rudi is a shrewd operator who will back up Dirk Pitt when the chips are down.

Loren Smith

Congresswomen Loren Smith has been Dirk Pitt’s on and off girlfriend from Vixen 03 onwards. She is a congresswoman representing Colorado and is described as having cinnamon brown hair with violet colored eyes. A though professional and idenpendant woman she is just as happy as Dirk to be in a casual relationship. However as the novels progress and especially in the later ones it becomes obvious she wants more commitment from the hero. In a departure from most action heros she eventually manages to tame her wild man into a steady commitment and stops his daring antics…sort of!

Hiram Yaeger

Hiram is NUMA’s resident computer genius a true hippry throwback he’s actually a genius so although he wears his hair long and wears jeans to work he’s actually a true white collar worker living in an expensive area and driving a BMW. His key creation and role in the series is the creation of NUMA’s supercomputer Max. A artificial intelligence like no other Max displays itself as a 3D holographic representation of Hiram Yaegers wife. As a computer Max is able to hack into remote databases or use its own database containing every piece of underwater and marine knowledge known to the US government.

St. Julian Perlmutter

Whilst Max and Hiram Yaeger represent modern advanced technology Dirk Pitts friend represents lost and arcane libraries. St. Julian Perlmutter is a enormous man weighing over 400pounds and described as a true gourmand with an exquisite taste in food and wine backed up by a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the sea and maritime. His Georgetown Washington mansion contains one of the worlds largest libraries on the sea, shipping and all things maritime a resource Dirk uses to trace lost vessels in his adventures.

Clive Cussler!

One of the long running jokes Cussler has with his fans is to write himself into the stories, usually at a point when Dirk and Al are in trouble or have followed a clue to a dead end and need a hand. All of a sudden up pops a character which who introduces himself as Clive Cussler and helps put Dirk and Al back on to the right path. The character of Cussler is always different in one book he’ll be a grizzly old prospector in another he’ll be a hard bitten miner but whatever his appearance Dirk always leaves the meeting with ‘this nagging feeling I’ve met that guy before somewhere!’

The NUMA Files and The Oregon Chronicles

The both these series of books are based in Cusslers Dirk Pitt/NUMA universe but they follow different characters who work for NUMA. In The NUMA Files series, the books follow the head of the NUMA's Special Assignments Team, Kurt Austin and his side kick Joe Zavala. The books were were co-written with Paul Kemprecos and follow the Dirk Pitt format so closely that they may as well be Dirk Pitt books. The only real difference being in the two series is the names of the lead protagonists, Kurt Austin being an almost identical character to Dirk Pitt, just with a bit more of an introspective character and with a passion for collecting antique duelling pistols instead of antique cars. The next series The Oregon Chronicles follows the adventures of the captain and crew of the a ship called the Oregon originally introduced in the Dirk Pitt novel Flood Tide. This group of semi-mercenaries called the ‘Corporation’ is run by the character Juan Cabrillo and hires itself out to which US government agency needs it’s services. The Oregon is designed to look from the outside as a rusty old tub whereas in fact she is bristling with state of the art weapons and technology enabling the US to reach into area it would not normally be able to effect with this deniable resource.

• Numa Files - Serpent (Published in 1999)
• Numa Files - Blue Gold (Published in 2000)
• Numa Files - Fire Ice (Published in 2002)
• Numa Files - White Death (Published in 2003)
• Numa Files - Lost City (Published in 2004)
• Numa Files - Polar Shift (Published in 2005)
• Numa Files - The Navigator (Published in 2007)


• Oregon Chronicles - Golden Buddha (Published in 2003)
• Oregon Chronicles - Sacred Stone (Published in 2004)
• Oregon Chronicles - Dark Watch (Published in 2005)
• Oregon Chronicles - The Skeleton Coast (Published in 2006)

Non Fiction

The Sea Hunters (Published in 1996)
This book details Clive Cussler’s exploits with his Charity NUMA and tells the true story of some of their most important discoveries.

Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (Published in 1998)
This is Cussler’s autobiography it details his life story and also goes through a basic outline of each character and plot of each book in the Dirk Pitt series.

The Sea Hunters II (Published in 2002)
A sequel to the original Sea Hunters book this one continues the adventures and exploits of Cussler’s real world NUMA team.

The Film and TV

Raise the Titanic (Released in 1980)

Cusslers Dirk Pitt books have always cried out for the Hollywood treatment, they read just like a James Bond movie and are packed with all the thrills and spills and action any studio would kill for in a summer blockbuster. Unforetunately the first of his books to be turned into a film killed any future releases for a long time. The movie of Raise the Titanic was absolutely dreadful after going through as many as 10 major script re-writes it didn't appear to follow the story of the book in any way shape or form. Even with heavy hitters like Alec Guiness in the cast it was doomed to die at the box office and placing Guiness up against himself by release it at the same time as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was probably not the smartest thing the studio could have done. Cussler swiftly distanced himself from the production and it sank as quickly as the ship...

Sahara (Released in 2005)

It took a 25 years for the horrors of Raise the Titanic to die down and to allow the studios to attempt another Dirk Pitt book. The novel Sahara was a good choice to revist Dirk Pitt and it it did become the big budget summer blockbuster movie that the story deserved. Starring the heart throb Matthew McConaughey as the hero Dirk Pitt and Penelope Cruz as the love interest it followed the plot of the book reasonably well. Admittedly the script deviated a little in places from the book which was enough to annoy the hard core fans but ultimately most Hollywood scripts tend to do this. All in all Sahara was critically quite well recieved, it was never going to be a hugely cerebral film but as an action movie in the Indiana Jones vain it was quite a successful film although it didn't set the box office alight.