I will openly admit that I have always found Dirk Pitt insufferable but, in a nice symmetry, I have always liked Clive Cussler – probably since the day I found out he had found an agent and sold his first novels by faking an agent’s stationery and setting up a simple but effective confidence game.

Clive Cussler was a man that wrote book about sea adventure, and used the proceeds to have real-life sea adventures – and to collect classic cars. He projected a certain joy de vivre that made me like him even when I staggered to finish Valhalla on the third attempt.
And later I found out I liked his other series much better – and I absolutely loved his memoirs about tresure hunting and relic salvaging.

Clive Cussler is gone, but he entertained us for decades, and his legacy will certainly live on.