March 4th, 2010Clive Cussler’s The Wrecker
“The Isaac Bell Novels” is a new hit series by “one of the greatest adventure novelists of our time” (imdb), Clive Cussler. The Wrecker is the sequel to the successful first Isaac Bell novel, titled The Chase. (The next release in the series is scheduled for June 1, 2010.)
A detective by the name of Isaac Bell represents the main character in The Wrecker. Bell is as athletic and fearless as James Bond and as intellectually brilliant as Sherlock Holmes.
As luck would have it, Isaac Bell is an independently wealthy heir of a major American banking family, his detective work more of a passion and obsession than a job-for-money.
In The Wrecker, the Southern Pacific Railroad hires the Van Dorn detective agency and Isaac Bell to capture a saboteur that has been targeting their construction sites with devastating effects. Southern Pacific’s financing for a project to build a new line between the northern and southern portions of the American West coast is threatened. If any more sabotage ensues, it could potentially sink the entire mega-corporation.
The villain known as The Wrecker may be every bit as brilliant as Isaac Bell himself, reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty. Up until the end of the novel, The Wrecker hides in plain sight within the circles of Southern Pacific Railroad president Osgood Hennessy.
The agenda of the Wrecker is to seize control of the Southern Pacific Railroad through various dummy corporations he has put in place, which will help him capture the fallout from Southern Pacific’s impending bankruptcy. Not only that but it appears he plans to eventually to control the entire United States railroad system, the greatest source of billionaire wealth in America at the turn of the last century.
Set in the early twentieth century, the novel of course presents a golden opportunity for automobile enthusiast Clive Cussler to have fun with several classic automobiles from the age when the invention of the car was in its infancy and the experimental variety in styles was greater than ever in history.
The Wrecker features the 1907 Model 35 Thomas Flyer, winner of the 1908 New York to Paris race, as well as a Packard Grey Wolf, a Bugatti Type 41 Royale, and Isaac Bell’s own Locomobile.
Best-selling author Clive Cussler nurtures a personal passion for the sea, and has previously created three successful action novel series that all revolve in and around water. However, residing in Colorado, just about as far from the sea as you can get, Cussler also appears to love the mountains and the rugged terrain of the American West.
This “second” love of Clive Cussler shines through in his new Isaac Bell series in a way that will likely reinvigorate many old Wild West enthusiasts as well as give birth to a whole new generation of Western lovers. The book is a highly recommended read.
Britt Hellman lives in Western North Carolina with her spouse and three sons, working as a professional copywriter. She writes book review as a hobby. Visit her site to order The Wrecker, or the most recent Dirk Pitt adventure, Clive Cussler’s Arctic Drift.