Cussler, Clive

(US, 1931– )

An advertising copywriter before becoming a full-time writer, Cussler has also made a career of marine exploration and is credited with locating over sixty shipwrecks. Begin with the cold war thriller Deep Six (1984). International tensions suddenly intensify after a ship is found off Alaska, all its crew having perished from a deadly cargo of nerve-agents. High-tech intelligence thwarts a Japanese conspiracy to take over the world by economic means in Dragon (1990). Sahara (1992) centres on the discovery of a secret scientific installation in the desert run by a ruthless French industrialist and a West African dictator. A Chinese gangster masterminds an illegal immigration racket in Flood Tide (1997). The investigation into his affairs involves searching for the ship that sank carrying Chiang Kai-shek's treasure when he fled China in 1949.

Ted Allbeury, Desmond Bagley, Ken Follett  DH