'The Jungle'

Author: Clive Cussler

Publisher: Penguin Fiction / 2011

Pages: 470pp

Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois in 1931. His father was German and had served in the Imperial German Army during World War I and one of Clive's uncles had served in the Imperial German Air Service and had shot down 14 Allied planes.

The family then moved to the United States and Clive enlisted with the Air Force and worked as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer.

After his discharge from the military he worked in the advertising industry as a copywriter and later as a creative director. He produced radio and television commercials many of which won international awards.

He began writing out of boredom when his wife took a job working nights for the local police department in California where they lived.

After making dinner for his children and putting them to bed, he had no one to talk to and nothing much to do so he took to writing.

His most famous character is marine engineer, government agent and adventurer Dirk Pitt.

The Dirk Pitt novels frequently begin with an alternative history premise, such as What if Atlantis were real? or What if Abraham Lincoln was not assassinated but was kidnapped?

The first two novels - The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg were relatively conventional maritime thrillers. The third, Raise the Titanic, made him internationally famous and established the pattern for the subsequent Pitt novels - a blend of adventure and advanced technology involving lost ships, beautiful women and sunken treasure.

In all, he wrote 27 books in the Dirk Pitt series. Some characters from these novels also reappear in the NUMA series, which total a further 21 novels.

As an underwater explorer, Cussler discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites. He was the initiator of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a non-profit organisation about which he wrote novels and non-fiction books.

Important finds by NUMA include the Carpathia, the first to come to the aid of the Titanic, and Manassas, the first ironclad of the civil war. The case of the Mary Celeste, the famed ghost ship is still buried in controversy.

Cussler also authored no less than 19 novels in the Oregon series, of  which the book being reviewed today forms part.

He also wrote 15 novels in the Isaac Bell series. Plus 12 in the Fargo Adventures series.

Cussler died in his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona in 2020, aged 88.

The book I am reviewing today speaks about Juan Cabrillo and his crew on the Oregon, which looks like a very old and neglected ship from afar.

After losing their contact with the US government because of a raid gone wrong, Cabrillo and his crew of mercenaries with a conscience take to earning money the hard way by taking on dangerous little jobs in the world's trouble spots.

Now they have accepted to find and bring back the headstrong daughter of a very rich man who has gone missing in the dense jungles of Myanmar.

But after being nearly killed in a terrorist attack in a super-luxury hotel in Singapore and later facing superior forces near a mysterious temple, Cabrillo begins to suspect he has been tricked and set up.

He has been used as a pawn in a deadly scheme.

About four-fifths of the way through, the novel shifts from a spy tale to a looming global crisis, starting with a threat to the American president.

The heroes of the first part of the book dovetail into this last part and obviously save the whole world.