Book Review: Golden Buddha by Clive Cussler

Golden Buddha (The Oregon Files)
by Clive Cussler with Craig Dirgo
published in 2003 by the Berkley Publishing Group

Summary: This is the first installment in the Oregon Files series which is the ongoing saga of Juan Cabrillo and The Corporation which were first introduced in the Dirk Pitt Novel Flood Tide (Dirk Pitt Adventures).  The book begins in the past with Langston Overholt's father helping the Dali Lama escape out of Tibet as the Chinese take over the small country.  The story continues in modern times with Juan and his bunch attempting to recover the golden Buddha statue that was lost in the escape so many years ago to use it in a ploy conducted by the CIA to return the Dali Lama to Tibet and reestablish it as an independent country.  Intricate double crosses in the world of espionage and auctions; the greed of billionaires and the humility of a simple spiritual man have you sprinting from one side of the globe to the other anxious to see good prevail.

Review: This is a first installment and it is very different than any of the other Cussler undertakings out at the time as it has nothing to do with NUMA and it is much more of a espionage thriller than a underwater thriller.  The setting of the Oregon being the platform from which the Corporation operates keep the novel connected with the sea, but it is a much more shootem up style novel than you would find with Dirk Pitt or Kurt Austin.  The list of characters reads much like a Tolstoy novel, basically too many to really keep track of but they are each interesting in their own way.  When the series shifts to the co-authoring help of Du Brul one of the first changes you will notice is a shortening of the cast.  While a good read, it lacks the pacing of a typical Cussler novel which is directly related to the issue of too many characters.  Also Dirgo had been writing non-fiction with Cussler before undertaking this series and the laborious nature of non-fiction reading is present here not in an easily definable way, but it is a tangible presence none the less.  While this is probably my least favorite of all Cussler novels, it is still worth a read so that you will always have the background of the characters because if you read the whole series, there is a good chance it will become your favorite Cussler series.

Reading Recommendation: Yes, not as good as the later installments in the Oregon Files series with Jack Du Brul co-authoring, but worth a read as the foundational novel of the series.