Book info

• Title Deep Six
• Author Clive Cussler
• Year 1984
• Genre Thriller

For the President of the United States, the crisis point is approaching fast. With his new Soviet initiative entering its most crucial phase, the President suddenly finds himself faced with a pollution disaster of potentially cataclysmic proportions. And then - incredibly - he vanishes into thin air, leaving his country poised on the brink of chaos. It's left to troubleshooter extraordinaire Dirk Pitt to hotwire the connections between these two shattering events. From the icy Alaskan waters to a Korean shipbreaker's yard; from a Caribbean shipwreck to a blazing inferno in the Mississippi Delta, he tracks down a conspiracy so fiendish and sophisticated that even the superpowers are helpless in its grip...

Thoughts

Somehow, despite being written in 1984, Deep Six doesn’t seem to have aged badly. Although a book that relies heavily on technology, whether it is transport or computers or gadgets, it hasn’t become obsolete. Quite a lot of the plot overview, the reasons behind the trouble, the politics involved, it all washed over me.

However, I loved some of the more simpler, James Bond style bits. From cars exploding, boat fires, to uneven fights on water. It was good stuff, but perhaps not Cussler’s best work.

Dirk Pitt is his exact same self. I have read some of the newer books first, but Pitt is the same in those as he is in this. Always up for an adventure, fearless in the face of adversity and incredibly strong, he manages to overcome practically any obstacle. There are times when you have to suspend your belief, but I think that comes with the territory.

I was a little confused by the Congresswoman character. She is supposed to have an on-again, off-again relationship with Dirk, but whenever I’ve read the books they are on-again. I must have missed the off-again stories.

Although I prefer the newer plots from Cussler, this one certainly holds its own in the Dirk Pitt series.

Rating: 3 / 5