** spoiler alert ** I decided to read a Dirk Pitt book after noticing that "Sahara", a Matthew McConaughy movie I enjoyed a while back, was based on a literary character. I decided to read "Raise the Titanic" instead of "Sahara" since I was not familiar with the specific story, but was familiar with the ship.

As for "Raise the Titanic", it was interesting although beyond unrealistic at times. It was fairly well written, although I would not call it spellbinding.

I did have a few specific gripes with the book:

- Although it is a Dirk Pitt adventure, Dirk's character only appears in one paragraph in the first 150 pages. This left me feeling misled by the "Dirk Pitt Adventure" stamp on the cover of the book, although the first 150 pages were interesting, regardless.

- I could not stand how Clive Cussler wrote Dana Seagram, the only female character of note in the book. I know this was written in the 1980's, but it was seriously cringeworthy.

- The only character that truly suffers at the end is the one person who sacrificed everything for the good of his country. Even the Russian villain is given a reprieve at the end, but the heroic scientist that saves America loses both his wife and his mind. Not even after Dirk finally finds the macguffin, or when the Sicilian Defense actually works and saves the country, is he revisited. I found this oddly unsatisfying for this type of book.

I am now debating whether to pick up another Dirk Pitt book and give it a shot, hoping the flaws I found were specific to "Raise the Titanic" and not to Clive Cussler.