** spoiler alert ** I’m the kind of guy who buys reprints of pulp fiction. I’m delighted that Charles Ardai’s Hard Case Crime series reprints gritty novels from that era and I even buy reprints of Doc Savage, Justice, Inc., The Shadow, and The Spider when I see them. I have often lamented the fact that there isn’t anything comparable in the modern fiction scene, but when I read Trojan Odyssey, I realized that there is pulp adventure being produced today. Pulp adventure is merely under the guise of the scientific exploration novel in the works of Clive Cussler.

This was a disappointing discovery to me because I love pulp adventure and Trojan Odyssey left me as hollow as the last Bond movie (produced during the writer’s strike and with a screenplay that demonstrated why writers are needed). There was plenty of action and there was lots of interesting speculation, but it didn’t all hang together. I used to think that Cussler was the civilian’s Tom Clancy, more interested in scientific discovery than military application. Now, I see him as a very clever author who must be laughing down his sleeve at his readers.

Trojan Odyssey isn’t really one story. Yes, it begins with the “Mystery of the Brown Sludge” (sounds like a Franklin W. Dixon novel, doesn’t it? Can Frank and Joe be far behind? Indeed, they aren’t far behind, merely disguised as Dirk and Summer—sibling offspring of the great Dirk Pitt even as Frank and Joe are offspring of the famous detective) and that thread runs through the book, but there is a trilogy of other storylines that don’t quite reach their full potential. We have the floating hotel and the hurricane story. Its conclusion is, in my not-so-valuable opinion, a Pitt-iful deus ex machina wherein our “hero” comes directly out of the sky to handle the emergency procedures and effect a most improbable rescue using resources that the readers have already been told are not suitable. We have the eponymous story of the revisionist Odyssey. Cussler is most enamored with the Iman Wilkens theory that the so-called “Trojan War” was fought by Celts near Cambridge, England and that the so-called “Odyssey” launched from Cadiz, Spain. Instead of adequately dealing with the arguments for relocating the legends, Cussler’s characters rely on the old academic gambit of claiming evidence without unveiling evidence. For example, we are told that the geographical locations in the “Odyssey” don’t match geographical locations in the Mediterranean, but we are not given a list of specific evidence. I suppose this is okay in a fictional novel, but it grated on my history-professor nerves. I know the Wilkens theory has much to commend it, but I was sick to my stomach that it was force-fed to me as a reader.

The third storyline was the secret base in Nicaragua. In classic fashion, we have the base in the volcano (well, under it), the pirate legend (and super advanced technology supporting it) to frighten away those who wander too close, and the massive plot to destroy the world. We then make that larger than life by having an ultimate villain known only as “Specter,” reminding us of the SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (S.P.E.C.T.R.E.) directed by Stavros in the James Bond novels. In Trojan Odyssey, “Specter” controls a vast organization with distinctive corporate colors, immense political reach, and massive corporate capital and “Specter” is willing to invest that capital in such a way as to kill millions in order to make trillions. Of course, Cussler has a great sense of humor, so there are times when the minions controlled by “Specter” remind one more of raw T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity) recruits in a bad episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. than of serious threats to the free (and not-so-free) world. I’m particularly thinking of the uniforms coded for gender and the image of Al Giordano discovering that he was dressed in the female uniform. I could so easily picture Robert Vaughn and David McCallum in those roles as Dirk Pitt tells Giordano to stuff something in his uniform to look more feminine.

The cataclysm that Pitt was trying to foil was fascinating, but I found myself so distracted by the phony Trojan scenario, the divine rescue of the floating hotel, and the Bond-like (or U.N.C.L.E.-like) scenes in Central America that it was hard to savor the crisis. I really had trouble suspending my disbelief.

However, there were a few minor bits in the book that appealed to me personally. In one scene, Cussler introduces an obese man in a white suit named Percy Rathbone. I instantly enjoyed the conversation with Rathbone (certainly a play off the late Basil Rathbone (best-known as Sherlock Holmes and as Guy of Gisbourne) and perhaps, humorous character actor Percy Herbert best-known for his roles in Bridge on the River Kwai, Guns of Navarone, and The Green Buddha) because his description and his speech pattern were clearly based on Sidney Greenstreet in many of the famous Humphrey Bogart films like The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Indeed he did, indeed he very much did sound like Greenstreet’s characters in those films. And, call me inconsistent, but I do enjoy the cameos where Cussler puts himself in the books (in this case, visiting Pitt’s “hangar” base) and I relived the “taste memory” of the only time I’ve dined at L’Auberge Chez Francois in Great Falls, Virginia. I could imagine the facility in my mind and how incredible the meal was. I didn’t have the calve brain or tongue that Pitt’s group had, but I remember having veal medallions and asparagus in a lemon wine sauce along with escargot and pate’. I also enjoyed Cussler’s reference to the delightful couple who owned and ran the place at the time. It probably won’t mean much to the average reader but it was fascinating on a personal level to me.

Finally, I commend Cussler on the name of the female villain in the book. Epona (Celtic goddess name) Eliade (last name of a great scholar in comparative religion) makes a nice touch. Such efforts in name selection (Percy Rathbone and Epona Eliade) make me want to check out some of the other names that I might have missed. But in spite of all the light, deft touches that made me smile, the overall feeling of the book was that it was disjointed, overblown (a pretty bad pun when part of the book involves a massive hurricane), and incredible (in the worst sense of making even me give up my suspension of disbelief).