The Other Heroes
Unsung heroes. They’re the ones I like.—Juan Cabrillo1
Starting with Pacific Vortex, Cussler has excelled at creating other heroes, perhaps none more memorable or audacious than Brian Shaw, the aging British Secret Service agent called out of retirement for a final assignment that leads to a showdown with Pitt. Shaw, who might be James Bond, fails in his mission but triumphs over Pitt for the heart of Heidi Milligan. There are also Sal Casio and Jerome P. Lillie III. Casio, a tough-guy private eye from the Mike Hammer School, is savvy enough to slip past the sophisticated burglar alarms protecting Pitt’s hangar home and get the drop on Dirk yet needs his help to solve the 20-year mystery of his missing daughter. Lillie is the tragic young heir of Lillie Beer, of St. Louis, and a field agent with the National Intelligence Agency. For approximately 25 years these and other heroes (like Julia Lee, a beautiful and determined undercover agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Services) battled alongside Pitt but were never seen or heard of again. With the exception of Sea Hunters, Clive Cussler & Dirk Pitt Revealed, and a smattering of non-fiction pieces, Cussler seemed satisfied writing Pitt adventures.
That all began to change in 1999.
Cussler’s fans received a double dose of action with the 15th Dirk Pitt adventure, Atlantis Found, and the inaugural NUMA Files adventure, Serpent, the first Cussler adventure with a hero other than Pitt2 and Cussler’s first fiction collaboration. Kemprecos teamed with Cussler on the first eight NUMA Files before Brown joined Cussler in 2011 on the ninth adventure, Devil’s Gate.
In a June 2001 interview with AudioBooksToday.com, Cussler was asked if writing NUMA Files with a partner means “you come up with the parameters of the story and then someone else fills it in?” Cussler explained, “Yeah … I had to have somebody help write it. I couldn’t do two books at the same time.” When asked how he felt about having someone else fleshing out his ideas Cussler answered, “Oh, it doesn’t bother me. [Kemprecos is] actually making up most of his own words. I edit it.”3
The collaborative process is a little more complicated than that, of course.
Cussler and his collaborator generally start off by working out a concept. The collaborator then begins writing, sending Cussler approximately a third of the manuscript at a time. If the collaborator is unhappy with how things are progressing then the pages are scrapped and the collaborator starts over. If the collaborator gets stuck with plotting or the direction the story is taking then Cussler steps in to provide guidance and suggestions. As the manuscript develops, Cussler adds or edits material if he feels it is necessary.4
NUMA Files chronicles the exploits of the agency’s Special Assignments Team, which handles jobs outside of NUMA’s ordinary tasks and outside the realm of government oversight.5 Originally, the publisher Simon & Schuster wanted NSAT to be a three-member team with (1) a Navy SEAL and jack-of-all-trades in the lead; (2) a brilliant oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; and (3) a gorgeous Marine captain, in her late twenties, cross-trained in special underwater engineering and as a pilot capable of flying any type of aircraft. These stereotypes left Cussler underwhelmed and, in a letter to Lampack, he suggests that the team’s leader be “an ex-ship’s engineering officer, who became a designer and builder of deep sea vehicles.” Cussler felt that the Woods Hole oceanographer presented “an opportunity to be original” but recommended “a husband and wife team or a couple who live together, particularly if they have a little spark and warmth between them. Here you get two for the price of one, a man along with a woman who is bright and feminine.” As for the gorgeous young Marine, Cussler thought the character was not believable, plus he wanted to “keep the military out of the team. The naval personnel can enter via the various plotlines, along with intelligent female characters, scientists, government officials, business executives, etc.”6 Eventually, the team leader developed into series protagonist Kurt Austin, while the deep sea vehicle designer and builder merged with the Marine to become Austin’s buddy-in-color Jose “Joe” Zavala, a tough marine engineer and the team’s self-proclaimed “propulsionist” who can “repair, modify, or restore any engine, be it steam, diesel, or electric and whether it was in an automobile, ship, or aircraft.”7 The Woods Hole team became Paul Trout, a Ph.D. in ocean science specializing in deep ocean geology recruited into NUMA by his high school friend Gunn, and his wife, Dr. Gamay Morgan-Trout, a Ph.D. in marine biology and one of Cussler’s finest redheads.8
While Austin, Zavala and the Trouts are as memorable as they are formidable and NSAT’s duties are different from Pitt’s special projects director duties,9 NUMA Files is no different from the Dirk Pitt series than Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) is from Star Trek (1966–1969)10 or Stargate Atlantis (2004–2009) is from Stargate SG-1 (1997–2007).11 Which is the point. Contemporary television is replete with franchises like Law & Order, CSI and NCIS that spawn spin-offs which walk a fine line between being different yet not too different from their parent series,12 while in literature it is commonplace for series characters to be inspired by another series character. There is no better example of this than Conan Doyle’s eccentric knight-errant Sherlock Holmes when it comes to inspiring other characters. Elements of the Great Detective can be found in hundreds of characters created since the late 19th century, ranging from the intentionally derivative, like Solar Pons,13 to the inspired, like Nero Wolfe, to the innovative, like Dr. Gregory House,14 but even Holmes was inspired by an earlier character, the Chevalier C. August Dupin, created by Poe. NUMA Files follows these traditions as it gives Cussler fans more NUMA adventures with a different cast of heroes. The structure and plot styles in NUMA Files and the Dirk Pitt series are virtually the same15 while Austin and Zavala are inspired (if not patterned) after Pitt and Girodino.
Pitt and Austin are approximately the same age and height, although at six-foot-one Austin is approximately two inches shorter than Pitt. Pitt is leaner than the broad-shouldered Austin, who is built like a football player, while Austin has coral blue eyes and his hair is prematurely white. Both Pitt and Austin were raised in and around the sea and are only children from wealthy West Coast families, but Austin’s mother is deceased and his background is more blue collar. His father owns a marine salvage company in Seattle,16 where Austin worked for six years, as well as two years in the North Sea on oil rigs.17 Like Pitt, though, Austin has a sophisticated side. A chess player with a library stocked with philosophy books and jazz records, he collects antique dueling pistols, frequently exercises by sculling and might even love racing more than Pitt, except he prefers boats to automobiles. Austin does not even own a car, content to borrow one from the NUMA motor pool whenever the need arises. Also like Pitt, Austin fails to rescue a woman he cares about in an early adventure when Francesca Cabral sacrifices herself to destroy the über-zaftig eco-extortionist Brynhild Sigurd and her Gogstad Corporation in Blue Gold.18
Austin’s name tag combines Cussler’s German heritage (Kurt) with southwestern folk hero elements (Colonel Travis Austin from the Alamo),19 and it should come as no surprise that Austin is a hero in the Pitt archetype. A former CIA underwater intelligence operative, Austin never served in the military but is patriotic, self-reliant, sometimes self-effacing, and always self-sacrificing as well as educated (he has a master’s in systems management from the University of Washington), intuitive, genial, dangerous when threatened, and prone to wisecracks. Growing up, Pitt was a Boy Scout20 and Austin was a Cub Scout.21 Austin is an honorable man who has no qualms when his NSAT duties require him to break a rule or a law, so long as it is necessary or for the good of his country. This makes Austin a realist, but he is a philosophical one rather than a cynical one like Pitt, and there are two good examples of this in Fire Ice. The first occurs during a Cold War showdown over a stranded American submarine between Austin and his opposite number in Soviet naval intelligence, Viktor Petrov. During radio communications, Austin (who is using the alias John Doe) warns Petrov (who is using the alias Ivan) not to board the sub because it is heavily mined. When Petrov asks why Austin should care if the Russian is killed, Austin points out that the Cold War will not last forever. Petrov suspects a bluff, unaware that Austin’s game is chess, not poker, and Petrov is nearly killed trying to invade the sub.22 During his recuperation, Petrov receives a bouquet of red, white, and blue carnations and a card with genuine well wishes from John Doe.23 In the second example, Austin is feeling uneasy about his current mission and is unable to sleep. Austin steps out on the deck of the NUMA vessel Argo and studies the Black Sea, a “big puddle of dead water, but Austin knew that an abyss with far more reason to be feared was the remorseless evil that lurked in the depths of the human mind.”24 This philosophical bent, a carryover from Kemprecos’s Cape Cod Pitt-archetype-hero Aristotle “Soc” Socarides,25 may explain why Austin is not a Peter Pan, like Pitt, but a man who is content with his lifestyle and in no mood to change how he lives it. Austin is also not as audacious as Pitt when it comes to escaping death traps or planning a mission. Before one dive, Zavala sums up Austin’s modus operandi by saying, “Plan the dive and dive the plan. Get in. Take a look. Get out. Stay flexible. Improvise when necessary.”26 Austin and Pitt do share other attitudes, however, such as a casual acceptance to surviving danger, a levelheaded approach to death and killing, and a habit of asking women he rescues to dinner, sometimes during the rescue. If there is a key difference between Pitt and Austin, however, it is that Pitt is unafraid to stray from the highroads most men travel and bring back secrets from lost places. It is not that Austin has any qualms against straying—he does find Christopher Columbus’s tomb in Serpent—but in personality and as head of NSAT he is primarily a defender of the realm.
The similarities between Giordino and Zavala begin with their names, although it is not an obvious connection. When it comes to naming characters, Cussler tends to rely on his imagination rather than tuckerization, the practice of naming a character after a real person,27 but there have been exceptions like Leigh Hunt/Leigh Hunter,28 Foss Gly29 and, as we will soon see, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. Girodino and Zavala, however, are exceptions among these exceptions. Where Giordino’s name and appearance are based on Albert Girodano, Zavala is named after a ship, the Republic of Texas Navy steamer Zavala that was located by Cussler’s NUMA organization in November 1986.30
Zavala is physically the opposite of his best friend in many of the same ways Giordino is to Pitt. Both are shorter, but at five-foot-ten Zavala is only three inches shorter than Austin and six inches taller than Giordino. Both weigh 175 pounds, but Girodino is stocky as opposed to the leaner Pitt; Zavala, who paid his way through college as a middleweight boxer, is wiry as opposed to the stocky Austin. Both have brown eyes, black hair and are swarthy, however Zavala combs his hair straight back and his heritage is Mexican. Zavala’s parents migrated to New Mexico before he was born and his native tongue is Spanish, a language he sometimes slips into when surprised or angry. Zavala and Giordino are also gentlemen by nature who enjoy cigars and the company of women, but as the brutal Sigurd and Melika, the overseer from Sahara, discover, neither man is afraid of fighting a brutal woman when pushed too far. Finally, both men are marine engineers who have worked together on submersible designs and construction like NUMA’s Pisces underwater laboratory.31
Austin and Zavala will occasionally quote old lyrics or make old references like Pitt and Giordino. In Fire Ice, Austin mentions the television programs Mission: Impossible and Murder, She Wrote, wiggles his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, and compares a situation to the Keystone Kops, while at one point Zavala sings an off-key version of the 1929 Cuban song “Guantanamera.” The patter of the banter between Austin and Zavala at times also sounds note for note like that of Pitt and Giordino. Zavala also shares Cussler and Pitt’s low opinion of most politicians.32
In 2003, Cussler launched his third adventure series with Golden Buddha: The First Novel of the “Oregon Files.”33 Cussler’s collaborator on the first two Oregon Files is Craig Dirgo, co-author of Clive Cussler & Dirk Pitt Revealed and both Sea Hunters books, but after Sacred Stone Dirgo left to concentrate on his own adventure series featuring the Pitt-archetype-hero John Taft and buddy-in-color Larry Martinez, operatives with the small and ultra-secret National Intelligence Agency (The Einstein Papers, Tremor).34 Starting with the third Oregon Files adventure, Dark Watch, Cussler collaborated with Du Brul, but in 2013 Du Brul announced he was leaving the series.
Unlike NUMA Files, Oregon Files features characters that have nothing to do with NUMA, but first appeared in a Pitt adventure. In Flood Tide we meet Cabrillo and a handful of the mercenaries that belong to The Corporation, a mixture of ex-intelligence agents and elite retired naval men and naval officers who work for any U.S. government agency requiring their unique services.35 Some of The Corporation’s members include Max Hanley (a chief engineer and first officer whose father died during a Japanese bombing while serving in Manila Bay in 1942), Eddie Seng (a planning expert and former CIA agent who served as the agency’s man in Beijing for 20 years), Linda Ross (a surveillance analyst and former navy fire-control officer aboard an Aegis-missile cruiser), Hali Kasim (a communications expert), Monica Crabtree (a quartermaster) and field operatives Pete James and Bob Meadows.36
Also introduced is the Oregon.
The brainchild of former CIA agent Cabrillo,37 the Oregon is a Pacific Coast lumber hauler converted into a sophisticated covert vessel disguised to resemble a ramshackle tramp steamer. Sandecker commissions the Oregon to help Pitt and Girodino transport NUMA’s Sea Dog II submersible close enough to secretly inspect and photograph Qin Shang’s own covert vessel United States, a converted passenger liner being used for human smuggling and other sinister purposes. During this mission, the Oregon is compromised and then damaged while battling the Chinese destroyer Chengdo. Cabrillo also loses his right leg beneath the knee, but Cabrillo tells Pitt when they part company that a grateful U.S. government is going to pay for a new and improved ship.38
Even though its predecessor was compromised, this new vessel is also called the Oregon, and, as far as most of the world is concerned, it is still one of the last tramp steamers.39 Also like her predecessor, this new Oregon flies the flag of Iran40 and is camouflaged to look like a derelict,41 but beneath her apparently rust-flaked blue hull is the closest thing to the starship Enterprise on the Seven Seas. Instead of diesel engines or nuclear power, the Oregon employs the magnetohydrodynamics technology invented by Dr. Elmore Egan that has been otherwise ignored since the luxury cruise vessels Emerald Dolphin and Golden Marlin were sabotaged during their maiden voyages in Valhalla Rising.42 The Oregon’s MHD engines generate an almost limitless amount of electricity by employing super-cooled magnets to strip naturally occurring free electrons from seawater. In turn, this power is fed into four aqua pulse jets capable of pushing water through two vectored-thrust drive tubes, a system designed to propel the Oregon to such speeds that her hull had to be stiffened and reinforced, which also gives the Oregon moderate icebreaking capabilities. Even more impressive is the Oregon’s complement of weapons; a hidden hangar in the aft-most hold housing a four-passenger Robinson R44 helicopter that can be raised hydraulically to the deck; a host of concealed waterline doors through which Zodiacs, a SEAL assault boat and other small water crafts can be launched; a moon pool along the Oregon’s keel where a pair of mini-subs can be secretly launched; and a sophisticated suite of electronics. Like her predecessor, though, the passageways and cabins of this new Oregon are as luxurious as a five-star hotel. Its kitchen remains one of the finest afloat, with Cordon Bleu-trained chefs.43
It is apparent in Flood Tide that there are several more members of The Corporation than are actually presented, but the Oregon appears for less than a hundred pages so only necessary associates are introduced so not to hinder the action, however such moderation is lacking in Golden Buddha or Sacred Stone. In the foreword to Golden Buddha, Cussler describes how he and Dirgo worked to create a unique cast of characters,44 and the authors do their best to showcase all of them; but having so many characters coming and going while maintaining an action-packed pace would test the limits of Cecil B. DeMille or D.W. Griffith, especially in Golden Buddha, which also features a complicated sting. The members of The Corporation aboard the new Oregon are still mercenaries, but in Golden Buddha they are educated and highly trained people in their respective fields who also served in the armed forces. The Corporation’s mission statement is also different as it now contracts with governments, corporations and private interests while performing good works of its own choosing.45
All of The Corporation’s members that appear in Flood Tide are present in the Oregon Files series (although beginning with Golden Buddha, Pete James is Pete Jones), and, just like in Flood Tide, The Corporation’s members are stockholders who split the profits from their missions and are assigned a title related to their duties rather than a rank.46 For instance, Hanley is The Corporation’s president, a promotion from Flood Tide, where he is corporate vice-president in charge of operational systems.47 New cast members include Eric Stone (the ship’s best handler), Mark Murphy (the man responsible for the Oregon’s vast arsenal), Franklin Lincoln (an ex-SEAL in command of the Oregon’s former Special Forces operators), Kevin Nixon (a prop master in charge of the ship’s Magic Shop, which is responsible for creating everything from false identifications to whatever clothing the Oregon’s operatives require during covert missions), and the chief steward, Maurice (a retired member of the British Royal Navy and the only person aboard the Oregon allowed to call Cabrillo by the rank of captain instead of the title Chairman).48
After Du Brul joined Oregon Files the plots became less hectic. The number of regular characters spotlighted in each adventure was reduced and the focus of much of the action involving the Oregon centered around or on series’ protagonist, Cabrillo.
When it comes to Cabrillo’s external tags he is a tall man in his mid-forties, handsome, well built though slightly on the thin side, with clear blue eyes and crew cut blond hair. Cabrillo’s grandparents emigrated from Sonora, Mexico, in 1931, and when Cabrillo was born they insisted their grandson be named after a famous historical figure, so Cabrillo’s father named him after the explorer and sailor who discovered California.49 Cabrillo is not a bureaucrat like Pitt, but a former CIA agent like Austin. A bit of a clotheshorse, in Flood Tide Cabrillo also smokes a pipe that he habitually clenches between his teeth. In Golden Buddha, Cabrillo replaces the pipe with a new tag, a collection of prosthetic right legs that conceal weapons and are otherwise modified to fit his unique lifestyle.
Cussler provides more clues for what goes on in Cabrillo’s heart and mind than most of his heroes. Raised in Orange County, California, by an upper-middle-class family, Cabrillo is by nature conservative, patriotic, fearless but controlled. Cabrillo majored in political science in college, where he was an active member of the ROTC, and hired by the CIA after graduation. Fluent in Russian, Arabic and Spanish, Cabrillo is also a master at disguises and stealth.50 Like Pitt, Cabrillo has lost a woman he loves, his wife Amy, who died in a single-car accident while driving drunk.51 This makes Cabrillo the only Cussler hero who was married prior to the start of his series, and the only widower. Cabrillo is also loyal. When Sloan Macintyre, the heroine of Skeleton Coast, learns about Amy she can tell that Cabrillo is the kind of man who marries once in his life.52 Likewise, Cabrillo left the CIA to protect his partner, Langston Overholt IV, after interference from the agency’s chiefs ruined covert operations against Nicaraguan Sandinistas. Since then, Overholt has ascended in power at the CIA, where he used his influence to help Cabrillo finance building the Oregon and funnels lucrative jobs to The Corporation. Perhaps the most revealing moment about what goes on inside Cabrillo takes place in Skeleton Coast as he and Sloan travel alone in one of the Oregon’s luxury lifeboats to interview a West African hermit fisherman named Papa Heinrick. Cabrillo and Sloan have known each other only a few hours, yet Cabrillo can tell Sloan is as driven as he is, the kind of person who leaves no job half-finished or backs down from a challenge. Cabrillo also admires Sloan’s curiosity and tenacity, traits he prizes in himself. Sloan, meanwhile, is intrigued by the enigmatic Chairman. In an attempt to learn more about him, she asks what Cabrillo would do if he was not the captain of the Oregon:
The question didn’t veer into any dangerous territory so Juan gave her an honest answer. “I think I’d be a paramedic.”
“Really? Not a doctor?”
“Most doctors I know treat patients like a commodity—something they have to work on if they want to get paid before returning to the golf course. And they’re backed by a huge staff of nurses and technicians and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. But paramedics are different. They are out there working in pairs with just their wits and a minimum of gear. They have to make the first critical assessments and often perform the first life-saving acts. They’re there to tell you everything is going to be all right and make damn sure it is. And once you get the person to the hospital you simply fade away. No glory, no God complex, no ‘gee, doc, you saved my life.’ You just do your job and go on to the next.”53
In contrast to Pitt, a cynical realist, and Austin, a philosophical realist, Cabrillo is an EMT for a troubled world, which makes the Chairman a knight-errant and defender of the realm. But Cabrillo can be as much of a nemesis and manhunter as Pitt. When he discovers Papa Heinrick has been murdered, he revs up the lifeboat to chase the killers. As the lifeboat increases speed it transforms into a high-performance hydrofoil, and a flabbergasted Sloan asks, “Who in the hell are you?”
“Someone you don’t want to piss off.… And they just pissed me off.”54
In 2006, three years after Cussler’s last solo writing effort, he gave his readers something completely different, a children’s story called The Adventures of Vin Fiz featuring ten-year-old twins Lacey and Casey Nicefolk of Castroville, California. As for name tags, Nicefolk is self-explanatory while Casey is a good old-fashioned boy’s name that recalls American folklore and tall tales (e.g., Casey Jones, Mighty Casey at the Bat) and Lacey conjures images of distinctively feminine things like lace from the tintype days. Blond and green-eyed Casey is not fond of school, although he is not a bad student, he just prefers thinking about mechanical things, exploring and building model airplanes and automobiles. In contrast, Lacey, who has golden brown hair and robin egg blue eyes, loves school, especially English and mathematics, as well as creating recipes using herbs grown on the family’s farm. Lacey also designs furniture that her father, Ever Nicefolk, builds and sells.55 Casey and Lacey also share a shadow side represented by a relative from the past, their family’s patriarch Knot Nicefolk, a highwayman during the days of merry old England.56
The family’s herb farm, Nicefolk Landing, sits in a valley near Monterey Bay, otherwise populated with artichoke farms. These other farms represent conformity, a way of life that provides security but sometimes requires a person to behave in ways contrary to his real nature, an incongruity represented by the contradictory nature of artichokes, a thistle with leaves that must be dipped in sauce to taste good.57 Ever Nicefolk does not follow the beat of an artichoke drummer like all his neighbors,58 but unlike the artichokes farms, which regularly turn a profit, the 60 acres of Nicefolk Landing is insufficient to raise enough herbs to be lucrative, and if the Nicefolks ever suffer one bad year without rain they know they will lose their farm.59
Casey, Lacey and Ever Nicefolk share more autobiographical elements with their creator than any other Cussler hero besides Pitt. The family lives near the same area of California where Cussler spent most of his childhood. Casey’s ambivalence towards school reflects Cussler’s belief that education is geared towards students with a flair for scholarship rather than a bent towards creativity, and comments on Casey’s report cards that he daydreams and does not apply himself irritate Ever, much like the Cs and Ds that often appeared on Cussler’s report cards concerned his father, Eric.60 Lacey’s academic success reflects Cussler’s passion for research61 and his success at Pasadena Community College, where Cussler applied himself after high school and earned As and Bs, much to his father’s amazement.62 Lacey’s talent for designing furniture harkens to Cussler’s own talents as an amateur handyman, landscaper and interior designer,63 while her passion for creating recipes reflects Cussler’s passion for fine dining that is evident in almost every one of his adventures.64 Casey’s use of herbs from Nicefolk Landing in her recipes likewise demonstrates a practicality inherited from Ever, a serious man who seldom laughs,65 and from Cussler, a serious man who describes himself as having a “mind rigid with practicality.”66 Ever Nicefolk also has “twinkling gray eyes” and “a crooked smile that moved back and forth across his mouth as if unable to settle in one position. He moved and talked slowly, traits that fooled some into thinking he was dull witted, when in fact he was very clever and smart.”67 Cussler’s eyes are green, but if you see him speak in public or watch an interview with him you can see that his eyes twinkle and his mouth is often set in a crooked grin. Cussler also moves and talks slowly, but his complex adventure plots and his honorary doctorate are proof of his intelligence, despite his insistence of being simpleminded.68 Elements of Cussler can also be seen in the wandering field-worker Sucoh Sucop (“Hocus Pocus” spelled backwards), a mysterious stranger who helps the Nicefolks with the harvest in exchange for room and board and permission to build a workshop in the barn so he can tinker after work. A tall, lanky older fellow with a long gray beard and looking like “an understuffed scarecrow,”69 Sucop is accompanied by a white donkey, named Mr. Periwinkle, who is pulling a cart painted a gleaming gold and filled with paraphernalia. Trim the beard and add a couple of pounds to Sucop and his description approximates Cussler. During the author’s cameo appearances in Sahara and Inca Gold he is accompanied by a donkey named Mr. Periwinkle,70 while in Valhalla Rising Cussler rescues Pitt, Giordino and Misty Graham in a catamaran named Periwinkle. Sucop likewise entertains Casey and Lacey with “wondrous stories”71 much as Cussler does with his readers.
Sucop is also a Wise Old Man figure, another Jungian fantasy archetype whose job is to coax the hero (or, in this case, heroes) into leaving the security and familiarity of home to set off on an adventure.72 Lacey and Casey love Nicefolk Landing and the surrounding countryside and rivers, but often wonder what it would be like to board one of the trains that journey along the nearby railroad tracks and see what waits beyond. Sucop provides the means with two gifts he makes, a small copper box with two levers and a large, square mat. If a toy is placed on the mat and the box’s left lever is pressed, the toy grows until it is life-size. Press the right lever and the toy returns to its original size. More than a gift, Succop is giving the children “the secret of enchantment,” but “you must believe with all your heart that your toy will become as real as life itself.” If the twins try to use the box for bad it will vanish, otherwise it will work until Casey and Lacey are both grown up, “Then your dreams will take new directions, and the secret will fade in your mind and heart.”73
Soon after Sucop leaves Nicefolk Landing, the twins discover Casey’s model of a Wright Flyer airplane on Sucop’s workbench. Casey names the plane Vin Fiz after his favorite grape soda pop, and the twins grow it life-size so they can see the world. The twins tell their parents that they are going on a short summer camping trip, then Casey, Lacey, their dog Floopy and the enchanted Vin Fiz experience a string of adventures while flying cross-country to New York City.
Cussler explains in a 2006 Publisher’s Weekly interview that the inspiration to write a children’s book came in part from Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car (1964).74 Fleming based his automobile on a real car named Chitty Bang Bang, one of a series of racing cars built with airplane engines in the early twenties by Count Louis Zborowski, and Cussler based his fictional airplane on an actual Wright Flyer named Vin Fiz, the first airplane to make a transcontinental flight across America.75 Fleming and Cussler’s stories also feature vehicles capable of independent actions, but in spite of the title of Fleming’s book there are no magical explanations. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, a Paragon Panther and the only car ever built by the defunct Paragon Motor-Car Company, just begins behaving oddly soon after it is restored by an inventor with one of fiction’s niftiest non-conformist names, Commander Caractacus Pott. With no warning and to the surprise of Commander Pott, his wife, Mimsie, and their children, Jeremy and Jemima, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is able to sprout wings and fly as well as convert herself into a hovercraft capable of sailing across the English Channel. From this point on the Potts and Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang spend most of their time spoiling the plans of a group of criminals led by Joe the Monster, who is operating a gunrunning operation out of a cave near Calais. In The Adventures of Vin Fiz, the Nicefolk twins, Floopy and Vin Fiz squelch the schemes of two criminal brothers during their New York trip, The Boss in Nevada and The Chief in Ohio. And just like in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, the exploits in The Adventures of Vin Fiz are to be enjoyed for their own sake and nothing else. Except for the contrast of the artichoke farms with Nicefolk Landing and the autobiographical elements in the characters of Sucop, Casey, Lacey and Ever Nicefolk, The Adventures of Vin Fiz offers very little in the way of subtext, allegories or metaphors. Cussler did not write a children’s book with messages like C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (1949–1954) or J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997–2007). If The Adventures of Vin Fiz contains any message it appears to be the same one found in Fleming’s novel, which is presented as a piquant snippet of advice from Commander Pott: “Never say ‘No’ to adventure. Always say ‘Yes,’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”76 If Cussler has anything to add to that it may be this encouragement from Lacey to her brother: “We’ve got to try. If we try, we can do. If we do, we can achieve and succeed.”77
Cussler was asked in his Publisher’s Weekly interview if there would be any more Nicefolk adventures and he said, “I have no other children’s book in the works,”78 but in 2010 Casey and Lacey returned in The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy. This time their magical vehicle is a replica of a powerboat that won the Gold Cup Grand National Race in back-to-back years.79 The twins manage to figure a way to compete in the Gold Cup in spite of their age and the lack of the thousand-dollar entry fee—basically they just run along with the other racers—but they have a harder time dealing with their old enemy The Boss, who (along with his henchmen) just robbed half a million dollars from a local bank. After watching a TV story about the twins trying to enter the Gold Cup, the vengeful Boss abducts Casey and Lacey while they are sleeping on the Hotsy Totsy and locks them in a rusty cell on abandoned Alcatraz Island that once held the Chicago gangster Al Capone. Thanks to Lacey’s ingenuity, as well as some timely assistance from Floopy and Hotsy Totsy, the twins escape to run the race, but if The Boss has his way Casey and Lacey will never reach the finish line.
Unlike The Adventures of Vin Fiz, which parades through one generally unconnected chance adventure after another, The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy concentrates on an adventure of the twins’ own making, racing in the Gold Cup, and the ancillary adventures that spring up around it, much like what happens to Sam and Remi Fargo in their premiere adventure, Spartan Gold. The situations in The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy are also local or microcosmic, just like in The Adventures of Vin Fiz, Spartan Gold, The Chase and Pitt’s earliest adventures. However, unlike the universal or macrocosmic adventures in most of the Pitt novels and all the NUMA Files and Oregon Files,80 The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy and The Adventures of Vin Fiz are meant to be as simple as they are innocent. Where the Pitt series and Cussler’s other series are updated versions of old fashion adventure stories, the Casey and Lacey Nicefolk adventures are traditional children’s literature set in a relatively recent time. These stories, first told by Cussler to his children and grandchildren,81 are as devoted to the naive fun of childhood as any dime novel boy’s adventure tale. Adolescent angst, sex, drugs, absentee parents, child molesters and other harsh realities are not broached, and while The Boss and his henchmen are crooked and mean they are also comical and dimwitted, making them dangerous but no more wicked than the bad guys faced by the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo or the Duke family. These foes never think twice about abducting you, and some may even intend to kill you, but fate-worse-than-death scenarios are never considered.82 Such unpleasantries can wait for the day Casey and Lacey’s dreams take them in new directions, but not while the secret of enchantment is real in their young hearts and minds.
The Adventures of Vin Fiz and The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy share additional similarities with other Cussler adventures.
Casey and Lacey are too young to have had a chance to satisfy many of the qualifications to be Pitt archetype heroes, but like Pitt and Cussler’s other heroes the Nicefolk twins are not above bending rules on occasion, like when they refuse to drop out of the Gold Cup race or fib to their parents about going camping so they can fly on Vin Fiz. The twins are generally more respectful towards authority figures than Pitt, but like Pitt and other Cussler heroes Casey and Lacey always put the needs of others ahead of their own. In The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy, a race official asks Lacey why the twins stopped to help other racers who were in trouble when the children could have possibly crossed the finish line first, and she explains that their parents taught them to help other people and do the right thing.83 (One can almost hear the echo of Pitt telling Dorsett how his mother taught him that life is a gift.) Lacey likewise exhibits a knack for MacGyverisms when she concocts a way to create string saws to cut through the rusting bars of Capone’s former cell.84
Casey and Lacey are neither defenders of the realm nor manhunters, but rather noble children longing to see what lies beyond the horizon, and in the process they end up receiving a gift from the fairylands in the form of Sucop’s secret of enchantment. The Nicefolk twins are also the second set of twins to become major heroic characters in a Cussler series after the introduction of Dirk Jr. and Summer Pitt in 2001. A few other twins have appeared in Cussler’s adventures, but so far they have either been villainous (Melo and Radko Kradzik from Blue Gold) or, at the very least, duplicitous (the supposed twins Kristjan and Kirsti Fyrie from Iceberg).
As detailed in Chapter 5, Cussler habitually incorporates Gothic elements in the adventures he writes without collaborators, and the Gothic elements in The Adventures of Vin Fiz and The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy include an abandoned ghost town, a creepy deserted manor house in the middle of a forest that The Chief and his gang use as a hideout, and Capone’s one-time cell on Alcatraz.85
Casey and Lacey’s adventures are also as respectful, if not as passionate, about history as the Pitt series. The twins’ magical vehicles are based upon historical vehicles and the series itself is set in the past, although the exact decade for either adventure is hard to pin down. In The Adventures of Vin Fiz Lacey does not think the 1911 Wright Flyer looks anything like the airplanes that fly over their house, while telephones, tractors, packaging machines, steamships, steam locomotives and horseback U.S. Cavalry are still part of the American landscape. This suggests The Adventures of Vin Fiz is set during the thirties or forties, but in The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy, which takes place the following summer, the original Hotsy Totsy won its back-to-back Gold Cups in 1930 and 1931,86 but Casey tells Lacey it happened long ago.87 Televisions are never mentioned in The Adventures of Vin Fiz but are commonplace in The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy, and Alcatraz was not closed as a prison until March 21, 1963. These discrepancies make selecting a compatible date for The Adventures of Vin Fiz and The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy impossible, but what is important is that both adventures take place in the past. Just as important, The Adventures of Vin Fiz and The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy are the only Cussler adventures, with the possible exceptions of Golden Buddha and Corsair,88 to feature the supernatural. By setting these stories in the past and injecting Sucop’s secret of enchantment, Cussler gets away with things he would never be permitted in a modern children’s adventure book. Not only would the naive wonder permeating these stories be dismissed as hokum, readers would be horrified to see children embark alone on such journeys.89 (However, such expeditions are considered de rigueur for contemporaries of Dorothy Gale, Penrod Schofield and Encyclopedia Brown.) The inclusion of magic also makes it abundantly clear that Casey and Lacey do not live in the real world but a more forgiving one, where innocence and the incredible are excused, not dismissed.
The Adventures of Vin Fiz is Cussler’s first solo novel not to feature Pitt as its hero, but The Chase (2007) is Cussler’s first western, his first detective novel and, as of this writing, Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency is the only series adventure hero besides Pitt to be introduced in a novel exclusively written by Cussler. To date there have been six more adventures in the Isaac Bell Detective series, The Wrecker (2009), The Spy (2010), The Race (2011), The Thief (2012), The Striker (2013) and The Bootlegger (2014), and Cussler’s collaborator on all of these sequels has been Justin Scott, the creator of realtor/private investigator Ben Abbott (Hardscape, Frostline, Mausoleum) and the author of a variety of other thrillers under his own name (The Shipkiller, Rampage) and as Paul Garrison (The Ripple Effect, Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command).
With the exception of a prologue and an epilogue that take place on April 15 and 16, 1950, respectively, The Chase takes place in 1906, approximately the same period as transitional western movies set during the waning days of America’s expansion, such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Big Jake (1971) and The Shootist (1976). This period also marks the final years of dominance for the dime novel, which had been as popular and influential with young Americans as television is today.90 By 1915 pulps like The Argosy and All-Story Magazine were all the rage, but in 1906 this transition was still in its infancy, which makes Bell a contemporary of Old Sleuth,91 Nick Carter,92 Duckworth Drew and Gerry Sant,93 larger-than-life dime novel detectives and intelligence agents whose sensational (and sometimes lurid) adventures promoted public interest in tales of detection and espionage. While early detective stories capitalized on public interest “in the ways that detectives worked,”94 dime novel espionage adventures called attention to foreign threats against America, especially from Germany, a danger Bell thwarts in The Spy and The Thief.95
Bell’s introduction in The Chase is from the point of view of another character, Colonel Henry Danzler, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, who served with distinction against the Moros in the Philippines and was selected by President Theodore Roosevelt to become the first director of the U.S. Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Along with a physical description, we are privy to Danzler’s professional opinions about Bell, who in many ways resembles the Dirk Pitt from Pacific Vortex. Bell is well over six feet tall, weighs approximately 175 pounds and appears to be about 30 years old with eyes that look beyond the horizon for what lays beyond, an effect Danzler finds almost mesmerizing, as if Bell’s eyes are searching deep into his thoughts. Unlike Pitt, Bell’s eyes are blue with a hint of violet and he has blond hair and a mustache that covers his upper lip, but Danzler can sense Bell (like Pitt) prefers to deal with substance and has no patience for fools or phoniness. Bell does not exhibit Pitt’s “two men” personality, but he is a man of contrasts. At first glance Bell appears to be a dandy. His hair is neatly trimmed, and he is as snappy a dresser as Pitt and Cabrillo. Bell’s tags include an immaculate white linen suit and a low-crowned hat with a wide brim, but he also wears a pair of leather boots that are worn from many hours in stirrups, and he keeps a derringer tucked inside his hat that he can draw quicker than a man can blink.96
The name tag Isaac Bell has a distinguished ring to it, if you will pardon the pun. Isaac is a Biblical patriarch and his name means “he laughs,” which might seem ironic considering Bell is all business and the least prone of Cussler’s heroes to laugh or wisecrack or be humorous, but the name Isaac has ironic connotations. In the Book of Genesis, Isaac’s father, Abraham, falls on his face with laughter when God informs him that he will be a father, and Abraham’s wife, Sarah, laughs to herself when she overhears God telling her husband that she will bear a son in the spring. At the time, Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90, but God commands the doubting Abraham to name the boy Isaac, and a few days after Sarah gives birth to their son she says, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.”97 As for Bell’s last name, a bell can be a musical instrument, a tocsin or used to mark the passage of time. Bell is not a musical person, but as a detective he stands as a symbol of warning for justice, and, as a historical figure living in 1906, he stands at the cusp between the end of American expansionism and the prosperous but increasingly perilous period that led up to President Woodrow Wilson’s election in 1912.98
Bell is a hero in the Pitt archetype, as self-reliant, self-sacrificing, patriotic and as much of a realist as any southwestern folk hero. Bell is also intuitive and educated, attributes he demonstrates early in The Chase, first by some solid deductive reasoning about a sadistic bank robber99 and then by being better informed about criminal psychology than his Van Dorn colleagues.100 Bell never served in the military or worked as a government employee like Pitt, Austin, Cabrillo and Sam Fargo; however, like these heroes Bell inherited a strong work ethic from his family. Also like Pitt, Austin and Cabrillo, Bell did not go into the same business as his father but followed a different career path. (Cussler likewise inherited his family’s strong work ethic and did not follow in his father’s footsteps. Eric Cussler was a hardworking student while his son connived ways to escape doing household chores and earned average grades in school. On the other hand young Clive worked from sunup to sundown to raise money to buy and rebuild cars, and during his one year in college Cussler did apply himself and earned high grades.)101 Like Pitt, Bell inherited a small fortune from his grandfather and comes from a prominent family, but where Pitt’s father is a California senator, Bell’s father is a wealthy Boston banker. (This is another example of Cussler’s fiction somewhat imitating his life. As a young World War I veteran, Eric Cussler worked at a bank and wisely invested in the European stock market before earning a degree in accountancy at Heidelberg University,102 commendable feats considering the harsh post-war economic conditions in Germany.) Bell is an honorable, genial gentleman, but he is dangerous if threatened. Bell’s employer, Joseph Van Dorn, tells Danzler how Bell shot and killed three members of the Barton gang in Missouri before the remaining two surrendered. Bell, like Austin and Cabrillo, is no Peter Pan, but like Pitt he falls in love in his first adventure. We can never know for sure if Pitt would have married Summer Moran, but we do know Bell marries the woman he loves, even though the wedding does not occur until The Thief. Bell and his wife, the former Marion Morgan, a secretary turned motion picture director, do appear in the epilogue of The Chase, where we are informed that they have three sons. All in all, the detective Isaac Bell is a defender of the realm and knight-errant who puts his life on the line for his fellow man and for his country, a manhunter and merciless nemesis to his adversaries, and, in his journeys for the Van Dorn Detective Agency, he is unafraid to stray from the highroads traveled by most people. Rather than searching for secrets in places that have become lost to history, Bell searches for secrets to thwart plots against the innocent and bring his adversaries to justice.
Another of Bell’s tags, a large gold watch with a heavy chain that he carries in his right vest pocket, demonstrates what makes him unique among Cussler’s heroes. One of Pitt’s most famous tags is his Doxa dive watch, so giving Bell a watch as a tag serves as a nice homage to Cussler’s first and most popular hero, but it also links and defines these two heroes through time. Pitt’s Doxa is a thoroughly modern watch, but (as mentioned in Chapter 2) Pitt also owns a pocket watch that belonged to his great-grandfather. Bell’s pocket watch is new, while Pitt’s is an heirloom, which is all a matter of perspective based upon time, but that difference is what makes Bell unique and defines the essence of both heroes. Bell is Cussler’s only historical hero, whereas Pitt is a contemporary man born 80 years too late. Pitt works for NUMA in part because he is compelled to rediscover the past,103 but Bell is a thoroughly modern man who embraces the latest marvels of science and technology. Where Pitt collects and restores antique automobiles, Bell’s Locomobile race car is new, his motorcycle is the latest racing model and his Custom Super 8 convertible Packard, in the epilogue, is a 1950 model.104
Bell’s vehicles are among the wealth of exact details that make the vanished world of his adventures “sharp, fresh, once more alive.” Presenting a plethora of details is a trademark of dime novel adventures, but Sampson could be talking about Bell’s adventures when he writes, “These casual descriptions catch the look and feel of the times and lend the story singular excitement for modern eyes.”105 In The Chase, a drunken miner (or, rather, a very dangerous man disguised as one) stumbles about with one suspender holding up torn and ragged pants; his boots are so scuffed and worn that they should have been discarded in a trash gully behind the town long ago. The inside of a bank vault is illuminated by an Edison brass lamp hanging from its steel ceiling. A simple wooden fence surrounds a mining town’s cemetery, where most of the markers are carved with the names of children who died of typhoid or cholera. Elsewhere in the same town stands a house built using thousands of cast-off saloon beer bottles embedded in adobe mud, the “green glass casting the interior in an eerie sort of light.”106 Along a set of railroad tracks a brakeman moves from car to car, checking the grease in the axle boxes before the train departs for Tonopah and Sacramento. And majestic chandeliers hang from a high ceiling in the grand lobby of a railroad depot, where the floor is filled with rows of high-backed oak waiting benches. These (and many more) details bring the lost dime novel world of detective and espionage adventure back to life in Bell’s adventures.
In contrast, Cussler’s newest heroes, Sam and Remi Fargo, live in a world of treasure hunting adventure that recalls Poe’s “The Gold Bug” (1843)107 but is as modern as the Disney films National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007).108 Introduced in Spartan Gold (2009), the Fargos have so far appeared in Lost Empire (2010), The Kingdom (2011), The Tombs (2012) and The Mayan Secrets (2013). Cussler’s collaborator on the first three Fargo adventures, Grant Blackwood, is the creator of the Briggs Tanner series (The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night) and he also collaborated with Tom Clancy on the Jack Ryan adventure Dead or Alive (2010). Starting with The Tombs, Cussler’s collaborator is Thomas Perry, creator of the Edgar Award-winning Butcher’s Boy series (The Butcher’s Boy, The Informant) and the acclaimed Jane Whitefield series (Vanishing Act, Poison Flower), but in 2013 it was announced that Perry was leaving the series.
Sam Fargo, with his tattered Panama hat, is a hero in the Pitt archetype, while Remi, with her lustrous auburn hair, is cut from the same classic Hawks heroine template as Loren Smith. The name tag of Fargo recollects the Gateway to the West, Fargo, North Dakota,109 and the Fargos possess the same zest for exploration and unflagging grit as any southwestern American folk hero or real-life American frontiersman. Sam and Remi are also self-reliant and self-sacrificing, attributes that are reflected in their strong, simple and unpretentious first names.110
Sam Fargo is a native Californian and a successful college athlete like Pitt, although Sam won his trophies in lacrosse and soccer, and whereas Pitt competed in boxing and fencing in college, Sam studies judo. Both heroes are also engineers. Pitt earned his master’s in marine engineering at the Air Force Academy, where he graduated 12th in his class,111 while Sam earned an engineering degree and graduated cum laude from Caltech. Sam worked for the government like Pitt, Austin and Cabrillo, but unlike these heroes Sam followed in his father’s vocational footsteps, at least at first. Sam’s late father, a Marine who saw action in the Pacific during World War II, was a lead engineer at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) during its glory days in the sixties and seventies, and Sam worked for seven years at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Like Pitt and Austin, Sam is a pilot and a scuba diver, learning the latter from his mother, Eunice, who is in her late sixties and runs a charter boat business in Key West that specializes in snorkeling and deep-sea fishing. Sam never served in the military or the CIA, but while working for DARPA he underwent covert operative training at the agency’s Camp Perry facility and frequently interacted with the CIA’s Clandestine Service, so he knows how field operatives think and act. Sam, like Remi, enjoys fine dining and is as much of a patriot as any Cussler hero. DARPA paid Sam far less than he could have earned working for a private company, but he could not resist the dual allure of pure creative engineering and serving his country.112 Sam Fargo also displays the same combination of creativity and studiousness that are personified by Casey and Lacey Nicefolk.
The former Remi Longstreet graduated from Boston College with a master’s in history and anthropology, with a focus on ancient trade routes. Remi is a New England native whose father, a retired private contractor, built custom homes along America’s Eastern Seaboard and whose mother, a pediatrician, writes a series of bestselling books on child rearing. An excellent marksman, Remi is also a qualified scuba diver, and where Remi enjoys her husband’s adventurous impulses, Sam loves Remi’s courage and determination. Remi does not work in as male-oriented a society as Loren, but she is as likable, independent and averse to taking anyone’s guff as the congresswoman, and while Loren thrives in Pitt’s crazy and often dangerous world there are times when Remi is even more anxious than Sam to discover the secrets that may be found in lost places.
The Fargos’ enthusiasm for history rivals, if not surpasses, Pitt’s. Sam inherited his father’s passion for World War II history and collecting rare books, whereas Remi’s expertise is ancient history. The couple also approaches history from different perspectives. Remi is analytical, but, to Sam, history is a living thing about real people doing real things. “Remi dissected; Sam dreamed,”113 but it is differences like this that balance the Fargos’ marriage.114 Sam is an intuitive right-brain thinker, and Remi is a logical left-brain thinker. Sam enjoys bird watching, and Remi tolerates it. Sam plays the piano by ear—another talent he picked up from his mother—and Remi plays the violin. It is their passion for music that led to the couple meeting at the Lighthouse jazz club and, to this day, they enjoy playing duets together. Sam and Remi also enjoy the good-natured debates these duets usually descend into over such topics as the best way to play a piece like Antonio Vivaldi’s concerto Summer. Sam and Remi also debate things like who is the best actor to play James Bond, or what started the English Reformation. Sam might never have followed his dream to start his own business, the Fargo Group, if not for Remi’s encouragement; however, it is Sam’s argon laser scanner, an invention that detects and identifies mixed metals and alloys from a distance,115 that led to the Fargo Group being purchased for enough money to finance the couple’s lifestyle. (This is another case of Cussler’s life imitating art. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Cussler and his partner, Leo Bestgen, sold their advertising business in part so Bestgen could concentrate on his dream of becoming an illustrator.)
If the Fargos’ marriage sounds familiar it may be because their relationship is inspired by Nick and Nora Charles from Hammett’s novel The Thin Man and MGM’s classic Thin Man film series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (1934–1947). Hammett’s model for Nora, playwright Lillian Hellman (The Children’s Hour, The Autumn Garden), once wrote that Nick and Nora have “maybe one of the few marriages in modern literature where the man and woman like each other and have a fine time together.”116 When Cussler was asked if the Fargos are his take on the Charleses, he confessed, “Yes, it is. I thought it was time for a husband and wife to entertain the readers with treasure stories.”117 This does not mean that the Fargos are Cussler’s first happily married adventurers. Remember, Cussler recommended that Paul Trout and Gamay Morgan-Trout be “a husband and wife team or a couple who live together” because it offered “an opportunity to be original,” particularly “if they have a little spark and warmth between them.”118 Isaac and Marion Bell have that spark and warmth. So do Dirk and Loren Pitt. Other examples can be found among Cussler’s supporting cast, including Yaeger and his wife, Pitt’s parents, Steiger and his wife (Vixen 03) and Oscar and Carolyn Lucas (Deep Six).119 A troubled marriage among characters qualifying as good guys is unusual in Cussler’s adventures, whereas dysfunctional relationships tend to be the norm among characters that are bad actors. Only two of Cussler’s couples from the dark side seem to like each other and have a fine time together, Lee and Maxine Rafferty, from Vixen 03, and Henry and Micki Moore, from Inca Gold. And while plenty of Cussler’s good guys, like Giordino, Sandecker and Gunn, are single, these characters have healthy friendships and/or solid relationships with their natural or extended families. In contrast, Cussler’s single villains tend to be isolated neurotics, or have lost a spouse (perhaps through foul play) or belong to some type of dysfunctional family. Another nod to The Thin Man is the admiration Sam and Remi reveal for each other in their banter.120
The Fargos are as honorable and as genial as any of Cussler’s heroes, and if they are not as dangerous when threatened as Pitt or Austin or Cabrillo or Bell they are able to take care of themselves.121 Neither Fargo is a manhunter122 nor nemesis, nor are they defenders of the realm or knights-errant. What they are, again, are people who forsake the highroads to search for treasures and secrets lost to history. Because of this, Sam and Remi’s adventures are peppered with fairy-tale elements.123 One of the most famous fairylands is Neverland, and, as it turns out, the Fargos have a Peter and a Wendy working for them. Peter Jeffcoat and Wendy Corden are boyfriend and girlfriend who work as assistants to Selma Wondrash, head of the research team at the charitable Fargo Foundation. Enchanted forests, wild places that are possibly magical and frequently unknown or forbidden, likewise appear.124 For Sam and Remi enchanted forests are places like swamp inlets, sea caves or secret tunnels under mountains that feel separated from the rest of the world.125 Another popular fairy-tale element often found in the Fargo Adventures is riddles. This is explained in more detail in Chapter 7, but many fairy tales include riddles or a riddle contest between a hero and a character representing the hero’s shadow side. Wild places that hide treasure and secrets can also contain death, and when they do, heroes cannot find one without facing the other. Sam and Remi’s adventures are therefore filled with perils as well as cryptograms and riddle clues such as Napoleon’s wine bottles in Spartan Gold and a confounding poem by Winston Lloyd Blaylock in Lost Empire. Spartan Gold and Lost Empire are also the only adventures outside of the Pitt series to include the fantastical element of Cussler making a cameo in the role of a helper.
The Fargos’ adventures are fairy tales for adults. While Casey and Lacey Nicefolk live in a world set in an indefinable past where magic operates, Sam and Remi live in a more modern and realistic world but one where high adventure is possible and riddles and clues rediscovered from the past can guide the way to priceless historical artifacts and knowledge. The Fargo Adventures are also sophisticated bad-boy adventures akin to King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and The Lost World (1912), so it should not be surprising that several references to Cussler’s boyhood state of California (e.g., the Fargo Foundation is based in La Jolla; the Lighthouse jazz club is in Hermosa Beach; Sam is a native Californian and graduated from Caltech) run through the series alongside its fairy-tale elements.