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Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels often focus on one or more current geopolitical events. The latest one, Arctic Drift, is no different, centering on a worldwide financial crisis in 2011, coupled with global warming woes.

The bad guy of the story, Mitchell Goyette, is a Canadian energy tycoon with a public facade of green technology and renewable resource businesses. However, his dark underbelly conceals heavy involvement in oil and natural gas.

The United States faces a financial meltdown, aggravated by the threat of an international boycott if the country does not decrease its carbon dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants. Canada holds the key to America’s salvation in the form or an enormous wealth of natural gas reserves.

The sitting American president, who in 2011 is neither Democratic nor Republican but an independent, hopes to use Canadian natural gas to replace coal for producing electricity and even for powering cars converted to run on natural gas.

However, Goyette is in a perfect position to take advantage of the United State’s desperate gamble, and he does so without conscience. To the Canadian public, Goyette is an environmental hero who invests millions in wind power and carbon sequestration. Unbeknownst to the masses, he’s unscrupulously involved in every dirty industry that will make him more money, in particular the oil sands of Athabasca, Alberta, and the Melville natural gas fields of the Canadian Arctic, over which he has full control.

Promising the U.S. government a nearly unlimited supply of the Melville natural gas to help solve the American energy crisis, and consequently also the financial crisis brought on by soaring oil prices, Goyette underhandedly signs a secret deal with the Chinese to instead sell them the gas at 10% above market value, with no intention of keeping his word to the U.S.

(In reality, it seems a little farfetched that the American government would not have had an iron-clad, legally binding, written contract in place for a deal of this magnitude and importance. But it makes for a good story.)

But Goyette’s double-dealing with China and the U.S. pales in comparison to some of his other crimes, which include political assassination, intentional dumping of toxic waste that kills humans and wildlife, theft, vandalizing, bribery of high ranking officials, and worst of all, nearly instigating a war between Canada and the U.S.

Of course, what Goyette fails to take into consideration is Dirk Pitt, the hero of twenty novels by Clive Cussler, including this most recent installment. In the end, Pitt manages to wreak havoc with all of Goyette’s ill-willed plans.

Arctic Drift is a seamless joint effort between Clive Cussler and son, Dirk Cussler. It is difficult to tell their penmanship apart. Whatever sections of the book were written by Dirk Cussler, he did an outstanding job of emulating his father’s inimitable style. (Oxymoron intended!)

Arctic Drift is a thrilling read in classic Clive Cussler style. You will not be disappointed. It may not be the edge-of-your-seat non-stop action from cover-to-cover as in some of the older Cussler works, but it’s still an exciting, intriguing and brilliantly written story that keeps your attention and makes you want to keep reading. The thugs are as smart as they are sinister, and the heroes as pure as Arctic ice.

Britt Hellman lives in Western North Carolina with her spouse and three children. She operates her own copywriting company from her house. Clive Cussler has been one of her favorite authors since reading his Trojan Odyssey, a Dirk Pitt Novel, in 2003. She writes reviews like this one on Arctic Drift for the fun of sharing that excitement.

Spartan Gold is the first in a new series by New York Times bestseller Clive Cussler in cooperation with action novel writer Grant Blackwood.

The books of this new series are called “Fargo Adventures,” so named after the book’s heroes, married couple Sam and Remi Fargo.

After a few years of entrepreneurship early in life which made them a fortune, the Fargos have been able to devote their new lives to their main passion, archeological treasure hunting. And they generally let nothing and no one deter them from finding their prize.

While this new series features a new set of characters and a different venue – archeology – the typical Clive Cussler calling cards that we have come to expect still remain: Exotic foods and drinks, rare collectors’ vehicles, and a lot of action taking place in water, above or below the surface.

In Spartan Gold, Sam and Remi Fargo pursue a trail of clues left on the labels of twelve wine bottles from the lost wine cellar of Napoleon Bonaparte, written in a code they must first decipher.

Naturally, their quest to unravel this mystery does not go unimpeded. Relentlessly on their heels are the hired ruffians of Bondaruk, a former Soviet freedom fighter from an ethnic minority group, who has since turned into a ruthless mafia billionaire.

Bondaruk believes the end of the trail will lead to an ancient Greek gold-treasure once conquered by his ancestor, the Persian ruler Xerxes the Great. A treasure which Bondaruk has convinced himself is his rightful heritage, and no one will be allowed to stand in his way of getting it.

The wine-bottle trail leads Sam and Remi, as well as their adversaries, from a sunken German submarine in the Great Pocomoke Swamp, Maryland, to the Bahamas, through much or Europe, from Germany, France and Italy to Croatia and Ukraine: not necessarily in that order.

To sum it up, Spartan Gold is the first in an exciting new series by the master of marine action novels, Clive Cussler, complete with the distinct hallmarks that we have come to love and expect from this beloved author. In other words, Spartan Gold is another guaranteed New York Times bestseller.

Britt Hellman lives in North Carolina with her husband and three sons, operating her own copywriting business out of her home. Clive Cussler has been long time favorite author. Visit her dedicated Cussler site to order the Spartan Gold novel or read her review of the latest Dirk Pitt novel, Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler.