Austin took comfort in the fact that the dead diver was still grinning.
#69: The Navigator by Clive Cussler:Carina was sitting up on the edge of the bed, trying to put a shoe on her foot. She was having a hard time with her hand-eye coordination. She seemed angrier at her foot than at anyone in particular.
Austin stood in the doorway. "Need a hand?"
Synopsis Naval whatnot investigator Kurt Austin (say it with me: Kurt! Austin!) gets sucked into solving a thousand-year-old mystery by the sight of a beautiful woman in distress.
You don't read Clive Cussler's books for biting social commentary or heartfelt romance or intelligent and thoughtful musings on the state of the world and one man's place in it.
You read them because shit either blows up, sinks or blows up and then sinks.
Meet Kurt Austin. He's the blond, lantern-jawed, saltwater-blue-eyed hero of the new series of Clive Cussler books, The NUMA Files. He's taking over from legendary blond, lantern-jawed, saltwater-blue-eyed hero Dirk Pitt (Dirk! Pitt!) who, after twenty daring adventure novels is getting really long in the tooth and in fact has two adult children to prove it*. And when a large part of your hero's business is getting a leg over any even remotely presentable woman, two adult children kind of harsh the narrative buzz.
So Dirk's handing over the business to Kurt Austin, a ridiculously good-looking man who is also deeply skilled at nautical archeology, scuba-diving, international diplomacy, puzzle-solving and general derring-do. In contrast to Dirk Pitt (Dirk! Pitt!), who collected fine vintage automobiles, Kurt Austin collects fine vintage firearms. When it's finally time for Kurt to hand over the reins to the next blond, lantern-jawed etc etc hero, I'm sure it'll turn out that dude stops spinning fan blades with his crotch in international competitions. NUMA breeds just those type of manly manly men.
And boy is Kurt manly.
While out on a vacation jaunt lassoing icebergs--I'll repeat that in case you missed it: lassoing icebergs for vacation**--Kurt and his not-Al-Giordino ethnic sidekick Joe Zavala stumble upon a group of mercenaries trying to crash another tanker ship into an oil rig. Now, much like yourselves, I cannot count the number of times this has happened to me on vacation, so Kurt does what I myself would have done, which is commandeer a Zodiac, go whipping across the icy waves of the North Atlantic, repel the mercenaries and steer the tanker to safety.
"The math seems pretty simple. The risk is high but not insurmountable, and we might be able to save more than two hundred lives."
"That's the way I look at it," Austin said. He slipped on a flotation vest and tossed another to Zavala. They sealed the deal with a firm handshake. Austin gave a thumbs-up to the captain, who'd been watching their discussion from the bridge.
One of the many people whose lives he saves that day is Carina Mechadi, an antiques tracker on the trail of a priceless statue that may or may not prove Phoenicians hid Solomon's treasures somewhere in North America, where they were discovered, re-hidden and protected by Meriweather Clark and Thomas Jefferson.
If you need to pause here for a moment to rub the cramp out of your suspension of disbelief, I understand completely. I'll wait here.
Right. Better?
If you also suspect that Carina has flashing green eyes, long lush tresses and a rack you could store wine on, you'd be eerily correct! She's also being stalked by a madman and his pet psychopath, and takes one look at Kurt Austin and instantly tucks her ankles behind her ears for safekeeping. There is just something about NUMA men, because I cannot count how many times that happened to Dirk Pitt***.
So together they jaunt around the world and save the statue, unravel the mystery and blah blah blah blah plot plot plot.
Look, here's the thing: Clive Cussler books are basically dude-Harlequins.
They whip along at a fast pace and every twenty pages, without fail, either something blows up, sinks or crashes and the hero gets ass on a plate.
Why read them, you ask? Good question!
For the same reason Harlequins are so popular: they require exactly zero brainpower. They are candy corn for the shnoggin.
The pace is whipfast; Navigator covers Phoenicia, Iraq, Egypt, the treacherous North Atlantic, Monticello, Yemen and Turkey in the first hundred pages. Cussler rarely uses embedded clauses or any sentence construction your average fifth grader couldn't parse, and shit blows up.
Also, there is a lot of well-written scuba diving, which is my kryptonite.
However...I have to say that having read the vast majority of the DP novels, I am not convinced I will be continuing with these new NUMA Files folks. Kurt Austin, I'm afraid, is a pale shadow of
his predecessor, and there's much less homoerotic tension between him and Zavala than Pitt had with Giordino. And hello, half the fun of reading the DP books is your secret yummy certainty that those two heroes are proffering comfort to each other among the smoldering remains of whatever just blew up. Even when Dirk's children show up, their mother's conveniently dead at the bottom of the deep blue sea (I'm sorry, did I spoil that for you? Bummer.) and thus Pitt's longterm-relationship with Giordino can continue uninterrupted.
For me, so far the only bright spot of the new crew are Paul and Gamay Trout, a husband-and-wife team who assist Austin and Zavala and who are way more interesting than the protagonists. For a start, in the movie version of these books Paul Trout would be played by brainy real-life hunk Bill Nye the Science Guy, and thus it makes sense that he gets an awesome woman like Gamay, who Zavala readily admits is the best scuba diver on the planet--even better than he is! And in this book, they got precious little screen time.
Also, the Thomas Jefferson plot was really terrible, just pinned up with thumbtacks and hairpins, and if you get to the end of your book and your madman seriously decides to boil everyone who annoys him in oil? You're doing it wrong.
True to form, though, by the end of the book the day, it has been saved, and Carina and Kurt have ended their dalliance, recognizing that, though he saved her from the aforementioned pit of burning oil it would never work out between them (keep those fingers crossed, Joe) but they'll always have Istanbul.
As will we all, friends. As will we all.
*Also, the novel in which said children are sprung on him like two particularly unwelcome parting gifts for the audience, there was way too much of Dirk Pitt enumerating all his adult daughter's attractive and sexy features which EW.
**Which one does with a tanker ship, naturally. Also, the first time he tries it, Kurt turns out to be naturally skilled at it. Look how surprised you all are.
***Dirk! Pitt!
Austin stood in the doorway. "Need a hand?"
Synopsis Naval whatnot investigator Kurt Austin (say it with me: Kurt! Austin!) gets sucked into solving a thousand-year-old mystery by the sight of a beautiful woman in distress.
You don't read Clive Cussler's books for biting social commentary or heartfelt romance or intelligent and thoughtful musings on the state of the world and one man's place in it.
You read them because shit either blows up, sinks or blows up and then sinks.
Meet Kurt Austin. He's the blond, lantern-jawed, saltwater-blue-eyed hero of the new series of Clive Cussler books, The NUMA Files. He's taking over from legendary blond, lantern-jawed, saltwater-blue-eyed hero Dirk Pitt (Dirk! Pitt!) who, after twenty daring adventure novels is getting really long in the tooth and in fact has two adult children to prove it*. And when a large part of your hero's business is getting a leg over any even remotely presentable woman, two adult children kind of harsh the narrative buzz.
So Dirk's handing over the business to Kurt Austin, a ridiculously good-looking man who is also deeply skilled at nautical archeology, scuba-diving, international diplomacy, puzzle-solving and general derring-do. In contrast to Dirk Pitt (Dirk! Pitt!), who collected fine vintage automobiles, Kurt Austin collects fine vintage firearms. When it's finally time for Kurt to hand over the reins to the next blond, lantern-jawed etc etc hero, I'm sure it'll turn out that dude stops spinning fan blades with his crotch in international competitions. NUMA breeds just those type of manly manly men.
And boy is Kurt manly.
While out on a vacation jaunt lassoing icebergs--I'll repeat that in case you missed it: lassoing icebergs for vacation**--Kurt and his not-Al-Giordino ethnic sidekick Joe Zavala stumble upon a group of mercenaries trying to crash another tanker ship into an oil rig. Now, much like yourselves, I cannot count the number of times this has happened to me on vacation, so Kurt does what I myself would have done, which is commandeer a Zodiac, go whipping across the icy waves of the North Atlantic, repel the mercenaries and steer the tanker to safety.
"The math seems pretty simple. The risk is high but not insurmountable, and we might be able to save more than two hundred lives."
"That's the way I look at it," Austin said. He slipped on a flotation vest and tossed another to Zavala. They sealed the deal with a firm handshake. Austin gave a thumbs-up to the captain, who'd been watching their discussion from the bridge.
One of the many people whose lives he saves that day is Carina Mechadi, an antiques tracker on the trail of a priceless statue that may or may not prove Phoenicians hid Solomon's treasures somewhere in North America, where they were discovered, re-hidden and protected by Meriweather Clark and Thomas Jefferson.
If you need to pause here for a moment to rub the cramp out of your suspension of disbelief, I understand completely. I'll wait here.
Right. Better?
If you also suspect that Carina has flashing green eyes, long lush tresses and a rack you could store wine on, you'd be eerily correct! She's also being stalked by a madman and his pet psychopath, and takes one look at Kurt Austin and instantly tucks her ankles behind her ears for safekeeping. There is just something about NUMA men, because I cannot count how many times that happened to Dirk Pitt***.
So together they jaunt around the world and save the statue, unravel the mystery and blah blah blah blah plot plot plot.
Look, here's the thing: Clive Cussler books are basically dude-Harlequins.
They whip along at a fast pace and every twenty pages, without fail, either something blows up, sinks or crashes and the hero gets ass on a plate.
Why read them, you ask? Good question!
For the same reason Harlequins are so popular: they require exactly zero brainpower. They are candy corn for the shnoggin.
The pace is whipfast; Navigator covers Phoenicia, Iraq, Egypt, the treacherous North Atlantic, Monticello, Yemen and Turkey in the first hundred pages. Cussler rarely uses embedded clauses or any sentence construction your average fifth grader couldn't parse, and shit blows up.
Also, there is a lot of well-written scuba diving, which is my kryptonite.
However...I have to say that having read the vast majority of the DP novels, I am not convinced I will be continuing with these new NUMA Files folks. Kurt Austin, I'm afraid, is a pale shadow of
his predecessor, and there's much less homoerotic tension between him and Zavala than Pitt had with Giordino. And hello, half the fun of reading the DP books is your secret yummy certainty that those two heroes are proffering comfort to each other among the smoldering remains of whatever just blew up. Even when Dirk's children show up, their mother's conveniently dead at the bottom of the deep blue sea (I'm sorry, did I spoil that for you? Bummer.) and thus Pitt's longterm-relationship with Giordino can continue uninterrupted.
For me, so far the only bright spot of the new crew are Paul and Gamay Trout, a husband-and-wife team who assist Austin and Zavala and who are way more interesting than the protagonists. For a start, in the movie version of these books Paul Trout would be played by brainy real-life hunk Bill Nye the Science Guy, and thus it makes sense that he gets an awesome woman like Gamay, who Zavala readily admits is the best scuba diver on the planet--even better than he is! And in this book, they got precious little screen time.
Also, the Thomas Jefferson plot was really terrible, just pinned up with thumbtacks and hairpins, and if you get to the end of your book and your madman seriously decides to boil everyone who annoys him in oil? You're doing it wrong.
True to form, though, by the end of the book the day, it has been saved, and Carina and Kurt have ended their dalliance, recognizing that, though he saved her from the aforementioned pit of burning oil it would never work out between them (keep those fingers crossed, Joe) but they'll always have Istanbul.
As will we all, friends. As will we all.
*Also, the novel in which said children are sprung on him like two particularly unwelcome parting gifts for the audience, there was way too much of Dirk Pitt enumerating all his adult daughter's attractive and sexy features which EW.
**Which one does with a tanker ship, naturally. Also, the first time he tries it, Kurt turns out to be naturally skilled at it. Look how surprised you all are.
***Dirk! Pitt!