GOLDEN BUDDHA

Sailing the high seas with Cussler once again.

Cussler’s first mate on the computer, Craig Dirgo, also copilot for The Sea-Hunters (1996) and The Sea-Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks (2002), signs on for his first tour as same for Cussler’s fiction, joining him in a new paperback series featuring the Oregon files. Cussler’s other sometimes-paperback fiction series, from the NUMA files (but featuring Kurt Austin rather than Dirk Pitt) is co-written by Paul Kamprecos (Fire Ice, 2002). Along with the ghosted and long-running Robert Ludlum and Harold Robbins industries, all this says something about today’s thriller and adventure fiction simply as product—although let’s remember that Alexandre Dumas built a giant factory of ghosts for churning out romances. The Oregon files turn on a secret ship captained by the mysterious Juan Cabrillo. Disguised as a freighter for hauling lumber, the ship bristles with electronic intelligence gear, is fantastically well-armed, and flies the Iranian flag—an American spy ship flies an Iranian flag? Object: to grab Tibet from the Chinese and Russians and return it to the Dalai Lama. Honestly fabulous.