Book Review: The Mediterranean Caper

The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt Adventure)

by Clive Cussler
originally published in 1977 by Bantam

Summary: This is the first installment published of the Dirk Pitt series of adventure novels which with the release of Crescent Dawn on November 16, 2010 will total twenty-one books.  This is by far my favorite series of adventure books in all the world.  Dirk Pitt is a hero that is larger than life and driven by a moral center rooted in honor, integrity and doing the right thing.  He always gets his man, gets the girl and gets a cool antique car.  This is the novel that started it all.  Later Pitt novels begin with an incident that occurs in the past and then moves to Dirk and present day where that past event will have a dramatic effect in the present.  The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt Adventure)begins a little different, it begins in the present day but with an Air Force Base on the Mediterranean island of Thasos being attacked by a World War I biplane.  The past comes to impact the present and had Dirk and his sidekick Al Giordino not arrived in time the biplane would have destroyed much more than it did.  The attack is their introduction to a mystery that has been impacting the NUMA expedition off the coast which Dirk and Al must uncover.  The adventure takes the reader from the skies to under the seas; from the cabins of oceangoing scientists to the elegantly set table of a rich German baron and his beautiful niece as Dirk sets to unraveling the diabolical plans of a villain who has been plaguing the world since the first world war.

Review: It is rare that I go back and reread books, but Little Faron has wanted to read the Dirk Pitt series from the beginning so I have gone back with him.  It is refreshing to return to the beginning of a series that I have been reading for more than twenty years.  This is a younger, rawer, less refined Dirk Pitt than the one you encounter in the most recent novels.  He is as much driven by rage and pride as he is by his moral compass.  He is still larger than life, but he is for lack of a better word "mortal."  He bleeds, he aches, he gets tired, but he still wins in the end.  To reread the starting point is to see just how far Dirk has come as a character and Cussler has come as an author.  His writing style is more refined and formulaic today than it is in Caper, but Caper reads with the pace and anticipatory excitement of all Dirk Pitt novels.  It is a great read and a great start to an iconic series.

Reading Recommendation: YES, grab a copy, curl up in your recliner and spend a few hours getting lost in the Mediterranean with a hero who is always worth your time to read.