Books in series
#1
Pacific Vortex!
1983
Dirk Pitt, death-defying adventurer and deep-sea expert, is out to the ultimate test as he plunges into the perilous waters of the Pacific Vortex—a fog-shrouded sea zone where dozens of ships have vanished without a trace. The latest victim is the awesome superb Starbuck, America's deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt's job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt's mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins-and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island-the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!
#2
The Mediterranean Caper
1973
Dirk Pitt rides a tidal wave of intrigue in this classic Cussler.
On an isolated Greek island, a World War I fighter plane attacks a modern U.S. Air Force base—a mysterious saboteur preys on an American scientific expedition—and Dirk Pitt plays a deadly game of hunter and hunted with the elusive head of an international smuggling ring.
#3
Iceberg
1975
Frozen inside a million-ton mass of ice-the charred remains of a long missing luxury yacht, vanished en route to a secret White House rendezvous. The only clue to the ship's priceless-and missing-cargo: nine ornately carved rings and the horribly burned bodies of its crew.
#4
Raise the Titanic!
1976
On orders from the Pentagon, marine explorer Dirk Pitt must salvage crucial material from the world's most infamous maritime disaster in this novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.
The President's secret task force has developed an unprecedented defensive weapon that relies on an extremely rare radioactive element—and Dirk Pitt has followed a twisted trail to a secret cache of the substance. Now, racing against brutal storms, Soviet spies, and a ticking clock, Pitt begins his most thrilling mission—to raise from its watery grave the shipwreck of the century...
#5
Vixen 03
1978
1954. Vixen 03 is down. The plane, bound for the Pacific carrying thirty-six Doomsday bombs—canisters armed with quick-death germs of unbelievable potency—vanishes. Vixen has in fact crashed into an ice-covered lake in Colorado. 1988. Dirk Pitt, who heroically raised the Titanic, discovers the wreckage of Vixen 03 . But two deadly canisters are missing. They're in the hands of a terrorist group. Their lethal to sail a battleship seventy-five miles up the Potomac and blast Washington, D.C., to kingdom come. Only Dirk can stop them.
#6
Night Probe!
1981
Also see: Alternate Cover Editions for this ISBN [ACE]
ACE #1
In the midst of an international crisis, Heidi Milligan, a beautiful, brilliant American naval commander, accidentally discovers an obscure reference to the long-buried North American Treaty, a precedent-shattering secret pact between the United States and Great Britain. The President believes that the treaty offers the single shot at salvation for an energy-starved, economically devastated nation, but the only two copies plummeted into the watery depths of the Atlantic in twin disasters long ago. The original document must be found—and the one American who can do the job is Dirk Pitt.
But in London, a daring counterplot is being orchestrated to see that the treaty is never implemented. Brian Shaw, a master spy who has often worked hand in hand with American agents, now confronts his most challenging command. Pitt’s mission: Raise the North American Treaty. Shaw’s mission: Stop Pitt.
Praise for Night Probe! and the Dirk Pitt® novels
“A rich tale . . . an absorbing, carefully told mystery with plenty of surprises.”—Los Angeles Times
“Dirk Pitt is a combination James Bond and Jacques Cousteau.”—New York Daily News
#7
Deep Six
1984
Another “impossible to put down” ( Houston Chronicle ) classic Dirk Pitt adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the NUMA Files and the Sam and Remi Fargo Adventures.
A deadly tide of poison flows into ocean waters. A ghost ship drifts across the empty northern Pacific. A luxury Soviet liner blazes into a funeral pyre. The Presidential yacht cruises the Potomac night—and the President disappears without a trace.
Dirk Pitt takes on a sinister Asian shipping empire in an intercontinental duel of nerves. In his most dangerous, fast-paced adventure, he fights to save the US government—and to seize one desperate moment of revenge!
#8
Cyclops
1986
A wealthy American financier disappears on atreasure hunt in an antique blimp. From Cubanwaters, the blimp drifts toward Florida with acrew of dead men—Soviet cosmonauts.DIRK PITT discovers a shocking scheme: acovert group of U.S. industrialists has put a colonyon the moon, a secret base they will defend at anycost. Threatened in space, the Russians are aboutto strike a savage blow in Cuba—and onlyDIRK PITT can stop them. From a Cuban torturechamber to the cold ocean depths, Pitt is racing to defuse an international conspiracy thatthreatens to shatter the earth!
#9
Treasure
1988
Charts of lost gold...breathtaking art and rarevolumes...maps of hidden oil and mineral deposits thatcould change the world's balance of power.Now DIRK PITT discovers the secret trail of thetreasures of Alexandria—a trail that plunges him into abrutal conspiracy for total domination of the globe. Zealotsthreaten to unseat the governments of Egypt and Mexico,exposing America to invasion and economic collapse.Suddenly, from East to West, anarchists reach their deadlytentacles into the heart of the United States.And DIRK PITT, the hard-hitting hero of Clive Cussler'ssmash bestsellers Sahara and Inca Gold, is up against themost feared assassin known to man. An international bandof terrorists is making its play for world power on the highseas—and Pitt is the only man alive who can stop them!
#10
Dragon
1990
Clive Cussler, author of over twenty consecutive New York Times bestsellers, brings back beloved hero Dirk Pitt in this electrifying, edge-of-your-seat thriller.
Japan, 1945: Two US bombers take off with atomic bombs. Only one gets through.
The Pacific, 1993: A Japanese cargo ship bound for the United States is instantly, thunderously vaporized, taking with it a Norwegian vessel. Japanese fanatics have developed a chilling plan to devastate and destroy the Western powers. From the ocean depths to the discovery of cache of lost Nazi loot, Dirk Pitt is untangling a savage conspiracy and igniting a daring counterattack. While Washington bureaucrats scramble, a brutal industrialist commands his blackmail scheme from a secret island control center. And Dirk, the dauntless hero of Sahara and Inca Gold, is taking on death-dealing robots and a human-hunting descendant of samurai warriors. Pitt alone controls the West’s secret ace in the a tidal wave of destruction waiting to be triggered on the ocean floor!
#11
Sahara
1992
1996, Egypt. Searching for a treasure on the Nile, Dirk Pitt thwarts the attempted assassination of a beautiful U.N. scientist investigating a disease that is driving thousands of North Africans into madness, cannibalism, and death. The suspected cause of the raging epidemic is vast, unprecedented pollution that threatens to extinguish all life in the world's seas. Racing to save the world from environmental catastrophe, Pitt and his team, equipped with an extraordinary, state-of-the-art yacht, run a gauntlet between a billionaire industrialist and a bloodthirsty West African tyrant. In the scorching desert, Pitt finds a gold mine manned by slaves and uncovers the truth behind two enduring mysteries—the fate of a Civil War ironclad and its secret connection with Lincoln's assassination, and the last flight of a long-lost female pilot....Now, amidst the blazing, shifting sands of the Sahara, DIRK PITT will make a desperate stand—in a battle the world cannot afford to lose!
#12
Inca Gold
1994
Nearly five centuries ago, a fleet of boats landed mysteriously on an island in an inland sea. There, an ancient Andean people hid a golden hoard greater than that of any pharaoh, then they and their treasure vanished into history—until now.
1998, the Andes Mountains of Peru. DIRK PITT dives into an ancient sacrificial pool, saving two American archaeologists from certain drowning. But his death-defying rescue is only the beginning, as it draws the intrepid Pitt into a vortex of darkness and danger, corruption and betrayal. A sinister crime syndicate has traced the long-lost treasure—worth almost a billion dollars—from the Andes to the banks of a hidden underground river flowing beneath a Mexican desert. Driven by burning greed and a ruthless bloodlust, the syndicate is racing to seize the golden prize...and to terminate the one man who can stop them: DIRK PITT!
#13
Shock Wave
1996
The thirteenth adrenaline-filled Dirk Pitt classic from multi-million-copy king of the adventure novel, Clive Cussler.
A hundred and forty years after a British ship wrecks on the way to an Australian penal colony and the survivors discover diamonds on the tropical island where they wash up, Maeve Fletcher, one of their descendants, is stranded on an island in Antarctica with a party of passengers after their cruise ship seemingly abandons them.
Dirk Pitt, on an expedition to find the source of a deadly plague that is killing dolphins and seals in the Weddell Sea, finds Maeve and the passengers and rescues them from death. When Pitt later uncovers the cause of the plague, he discovers that Maeve's father, Arthur Dorsett, and her two sisters are responsible because of their diamond-mining technology. A deadly race develops to stop Dorsett from continuing his murderous mining operations and to head off a disaster that will kill millions. Pitt's struggle to foil Dorsett's ruthless plan to destroy the market for diamonds and thus gain a monopoly of his own takes him from harrowing adventures off the west coast of Canada to being cast adrift in the Tasman Sea.
#14
Flood Tide
1997
Following the runaway success of his first nonfiction book, The Sea Hunters, Clive Cussler returns with his legendary fictional hero Dirk Pitt" - in a masterfully crafted tale of villainy on the high seas and the Mississippi River that can only enhance his status as the grand master of adventure fiction.
The coin of the realm for the wealthy, insatiably greedy Chinese smuggler who is Dirk Pitt's adversary in Flood Tide is human lives: much of his vast fortune has been made smuggling Chinese immigrants into countries around the globe, including the United States.
Tracking the smuggler's activities leads Pitt from Washington State to Louisiana, where his quarry is constructing a huge shipping port in the middle of nowhere. Why has he chosen this unlikely location? The trail then leads to the race to find the site of the mysterious sinking of the ship that Chiang Kai-shek filled with treasure when he fled China in 1949, including the legendary boxes containing the bones of Peking Man that had vanished at the beginning of World War 1.
As Pitt prepares for a final showdown, he is faced with the most formidable foe he has ever encountered. With a dozen consecutive New York Times bestsellers and over 70 million copies of his books in print, Clive Cussler is one of America's most popular novelists. His latest book is enthralling, intricately plotted, and supremely suspenseful.
#15
Atlantis Found
1999
Dirk Pitt discovers Atlantis, in a breathtaking novel from the grand master of adventure fiction.
September l858: An Antarctic whaler stumbles upon an aged wreck, its grisly frozen crew guarding crates of odd antiquities—and a skull carved from black obsidian.
March 200l: A team of anthropologists gazes in awe at a wall of strange inscriptions, moments before a blast seals them deep within the Colorado rock.
April 200l: A research ship manned by Dirk Pitt and members of the U.S. National Underwater and Marine Agency is set upon and nearly sunk by an impossibility—a vessel that should have died fifty-six years before.
Pitt knows that somehow all these incidents are connected, and his investigations soon land him deep into an ancient mystery with very modern consequences, up against a diabolical enemy unlike any he has ever known, and racing to save not only his own life but the future of the world itself.
The trap is set. The clock is ticking. And only one man stands between earth and Armageddon...
Filled with dazzling suspense and astonishing set pieces, this is Clive Cussler's greatest adventure novel yet.
#16
Valhalla Rising
2001
Marine explorer Dirk Pitt must rely on the nautical lore of Jules Verne to stop a ruthless oil baron with his sights set on political power in this #1 New York Times-bestselling series.
In the middle of its maiden voyage, a luxury cruise ship using revolutionary new engines suddenly catches fire and sinks. Its alarms stay silent; its sprinkler system remains inactive. Nearby NUMA special projects director Dirk Pitt notices smoke and races to the rescue. He's too late to save the engineer behind the ship's new technology, but helps the man's daughter, Kelly Egan, escape with her father's work in a leather briefcase.
While Ms. Egan strives to uncover the hidden value in her father's inventions, Pitt is hired on by maritime insurers to investigate the wreckage. Neither are prepared for the mechanical marvels they'll soon be forced to confront. The machines could only be the stuff of legend, described in the tales of Viking explorers or the accounts of Jules Verne. And they may be Pitt and Egan's only hope when an oil tycoon with a plan of his own appears on the scene.
Before journey's end, Pitt will take on a power-mad millionaire, tread upon territory previously known only to Verne's illustrious Captain Nemo, and make shocking discoveries about his own past.
#17
Trojan Odyssey
2003
Long hailed as the grand master of adventure fiction, Clive Cussler has continued to astound with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his novels. Now, with a surprising twist, he gives us his most audacious work yet.
In the final pages of Valhalla Rising, Dirk Pitt discovered, to his shock, that he had two grown children he had never known-twenty-three-year-old fraternal twins born to a woman he thought had died in an underwater earthquake. Both have inherited his love of the sea: the girl, Summer, is a marine biologist; the boy, himself named Dirk, is a marine engineer. And now they are about to help their father in the adventure of a lifetime.
There is a brown tide infesting the ocean off the shore of Nicaragua. The twins are working in a NUMA(r) underwater enclosure, trying to determine its origin, when two startling things happen: Summer discovers an artifact, something strange and beautiful and ancient; and the worst storm in years boils up out of the sky, heading straight not only for them but also for a luxurious floating resort hotel square in its path.
The peril for everybody concerned is incalculable, and, desperately, Pitt, Al Giordino, and the rest of the NUMA(r) crew rush to the rescue, but what they find in the storm's wake makes the furies of nature pale in comparison. For there is an all-too-human evil at work in that part of the world, and the brown tide is only a by-product of its plan. Soon, its work will be complete-and the world will be a very different place.
Though if Summer's discovery is to be believed, the world is already a very different place...
#18
Black Wind
2004
Dirk Pitt teams up with his children to find two WWII Japanese subs that went down armed with a devastating payload: a new biological virus.
#19
Treasure of Khan
2006
Black Wind continued Dirk Pitt's meteoric career with one of Clive Cussler's most audacious, and well-received novels yet. But now Cussler takes an extraordinary leap, with one of his most remarkable villains ever.
Genghis Khan-the greatest conqueror of all time, who, at his peak, ruled an empire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. His conquests are the stuff of legend, his tomb a forgotten mystery. Until now
#20
Arctic Drift
2008
A potential breakthrough discovery to reverse global warming... a series of unexplained sudden deaths in British Columbia... a rash of international incidents between the United States and one of its closest allies that threatens to erupt into an actual shooting war... NUMA director Dirk Pitt and his children, Dirk Jr. and Summer, have reason to believe there's a connection here somewhere, but they also know they have very little time to find it before events escalate out of control. Their only real clue might just be a mysterious silvery mineral traced to a long-ago expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. But no one survived from that doomed mission, captain and crew perished to a man?and if Pitt and his colleague Al Giordino aren't careful, the very same fate may await them.
#21
Crescent Dawn
2010
In A.D. 327, a Roman galley barely escapes a pirate attack with its extraordinary cargo. In 1916, a British warship mysteriously explodes in the middle of the North Sea. In the present day, a cluster of important mosques in Turkey and Egypt are wracked by explosions. Does anything tie them together?
NUMA director Dirk Pitt is about to find out, as Roman artifacts discovered in Turkey and Israel unnervingly connect to the rise of a fundamentalist movement determined to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire, and to the existence of a mysterious "manifest," lost long ago, which if discovered again . . . just may change the history of the world as we know it.
#22
Poseidon's Arrow
2012
Manca soltanto un ultimo collaudo. Ed è proprio in quel momento che un attentato sanguinario mette fine alla vita del progettista e distrugge il prototipo segreto del Sea Arrow, un nuovo modello di sottomarino, il più veloce, il più silenzioso e il più potente mezzo subacqueo che abbia mai solcato le acque. Se le cose fossero andate secondo i piani e il Sea Arrow fosse stato realizzato, l'America non avrebbe avuto rivali nel dominio dei mari.
Ma l'innocente "gita di pesca" di copertura, che avrebbe permesso di mettere a punto le ultime mosse, si è misteriosamente conclusa in tragedia. Solo la Numa può intervenire per recuperare i resti del cabinato da pesca sul quale viaggiava il progettista, ma nemmeno Dirk Pitt e Al Giordino sono consapevoli dell'importanza dell'impresa che stanno per affrontare. Non tarderanno però a rendersene conto, costretti da subito a difendersi dall'attacco di uno spietato commando, pronto a tutto pur di recuperare quello che c'era a bordo.
Ma qual era il segreto che si celava in quel cabinato? E come si collega il progetto del Sea Arrow alla scomparsa del sommergibile italiano Barbarigo avvenuta nel 1943 al largo dell'oceano Indiano?
Affiancato da un'affascinante agente del NCIS, Pitt indaga, mentre i pericoli per lui e per i suoi uomini si moltiplicano e la soluzione del mistero sembra sempre più lontana...
#23
Havana Storm
2014
Renowned marine adventurer Dirk Pitt returns to stem a toxic outbreak in the thrilling novel from the grand master of adventure and #1 New York Times –bestselling author.
While investigating an unexplained poisonous spill in the Caribbean Sea that may ultimately threaten the United States, Dirk Pitt unwittingly becomes involved in something even more dangerous—a post-Castro power struggle for the control of Cuba. Meanwhile, Pitt’s children, marine engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, are on an investigation of their own, chasing an Aztec stone that may reveal the whereabouts of a vast historical Aztec treasure. The problem is, that stone was believed to have been destroyed on the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which brings them both to Cuba as well—and squarely into harm’s way. The whole Pitt familyhas been in desperate situations before . . . but perhaps never quite as dire as the one facing them now.
#24
Odessa Sea
2016
Dirk Pitt - merentutkimuksen Indiana Jones Kadoksissa ollut kultakätkö. Kylmän sodan aikaan hävinnyt pommikone kuolettavine lasteineen. Onko NUMAsta vastusta historiasta kumpuaville pahoille voimille? NUMAn johtaja Dirk Pitt on Mustallamerellä etsimässä Ottomaanien valtakunnan aikaista hylkyä, kun hän kuulee avunpyynnön toiselta rahtilaivalta. Pittin ehdittyä paikalle laivalla ei ole enää eloonjääneitä - vain outo rikin haju leijuu ilmassa. Mysteeriin ovat sekaantuneet niin uraanin salakuljettajat kuin kansainväliset terroristijärjestöt. Samaan aikaan Pittin tutkijalapset löytävät yllättäen Norjanmeressä makaavasta hylystä Romanovien suvulle kuuluneen kultaharkon. Aarretta havittelee myös moni muu
#25
Celtic Empire
2019
Clive Cussler, "The Grand Master of Adventure," sends his intrepid heroes Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino on their wildest, boldest mission into the ancient world, unlocking extraordinary secrets and solving hideous crimes. Another fabulous read from the most beloved series from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.
The murders of a team of United Nations scientists in El Salvador. . . A deadly collision in the waterways off the city of Detroit. . . An attack by tomb raiders on an archaeological site along the banks of the Nile. . . Is there a link between these violent events? The answer may lie in the tale of an Egyptian princess forced to flee the armies of her father three thousand years ago.
During what was supposed to be a routine investigation in South America, NUMA Director Dirk Pitt finds himself embroiled in an international mystery, one that will lead him across the world and which will threaten everyone and everything he knows—most importantly, his own family. Pitt travels to Scotland in search of answers about the spread of an unknown disease and the shadowy bioremediation company that may be behind it. Meanwhile, his son and daughter face a threat of their own when the discoveries they have made in an Egyptian tomb put killers on their trail. These seemingly unrelated riddles come together in a stunning showdown on the rocky isles of Ireland, where only the Pitts can unravel the secrets of an ancient enigma that could change the very future of mankind.
#26
Clive Cussler's The Devil's Sea
2021
Fearless adventurer Dirk Pitt must unravel a historical mystery of epic importance in the latest novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler.
In 1959 Tibet, a Buddhist artifact of immense importance was seemingly lost to history in the turmoil of the Communist takeover. But when National Underwater and Marine Agency Director Dirk Pitt discovers a forgotten plane crash in the Philippine Sea over 60 years later, new clues emerge to its hidden existence.
But Pitt and his compatriot Al Giordino have larger worries when they are ordered to recover a failed hypersonic missile from Luzon Strait. Only someone else is after it, too…a rogue Chinese military team that makes their own earthshattering discovery, hijacking a ship capable of stirring the waters of the deep into a veritable Devil’s Sea.
From the cold dark depths of the Pacific Ocean to the dizzying heights of the Himalaya Mountains, only Dirk Pitt and his children, Summer and Dirk Jr., can unravel the mysteries that will preserve a religion, save a nation…and save the world from war.
#27
Clive Cussler's The Corsican Shadow
2023
Intrepid adventurer Dirk Pitt must unravel an enduring historical mystery in the latest novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler.
In May 1940, as the German army blitzes Europe and Parisians flee their city, the chief curator of the Musée de l’Armée is ordered to get a mysterious piece of cargo out of the country. When he arrives at the port of Le Havre and learns that his intended ship has been sunk, he places the object on a decrepit steamer that sails out under German fire.
In the present day, National Underwater and Marine Agency Director Dirk Pitt is on a diving expedition in the English Channel when he discovers a cache of uncut diamonds on a shipwreck. When the diamonds are stolen, Pitt and the NUMA agency find themselves up against a murderous cabal that soon reveals far more destructive plans than mere theft. Vital water treatment facilities around the globe are being targeted—placing the world’s population in grave peril.
From the shadow of the Eiffel Tower to the depths of the Irish Sea to the islands of the Caribbean, only Dirk Pitt and his children, Summer and Dirk Jr., can locate the treasure that will preserve the soul of a nation...and save the world from catastrophe.
#1-20
Pacific Vortex
2025
as listed
Authors
Clive Cussler
Author · 97 books
Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt, in 1973. His first non-fiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. The Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in May, 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed. Cussler was an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization (named after the fictional Federal agency in his novels) that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites including the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, the Confederacy's Hunley, and its victim, the Union's Housatonic; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, which was sunk by the famous ironclad, Merrimack; the renowned Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron, the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, and the Carpathia, which sank almost six years to-the-day after plucking Titanic's survivors from the sea. In addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler was also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He was honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration. Cussler's books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. His past international bestsellers include Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic, Vixen 03, Night Probe, Deep Six, Cyclops, Treasure, Dragon, Sahara, Inca Gold, Shock Wave, Flood Tide, Atlantis Found, Valhalla Rising, Trojan Odyssey and Black Wind (this last with his son, Dirk Cussler); the nonfiction books The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed; the NUMA® Files novels Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death and Lost City (written with Paul Kemprecos); and the Oregon Files novels Sacred Stone and Golden Buddha (written with Craig Dirgo) and Dark Watch (written with Jack Du Brul). Clive Cussler died at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 24, 2020.
