Dirk Pitt Sheds a Tear: Adventure Novelist Clive Cussler, Dead at 88

By Chris Eger

A few Clive Cussler books, and some tools familiar to Dirk Pitt’s trade. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Noted underwater explorer, Air Force Veteran, and novelist, Clive Eric Cussler, died this week at age 88, leaving a hole on book racks and in the hearts of his fans.
“It is with a heavy heart that I want to share the sad news that my husband, Clive passed away on Monday,” noted his wife Janet on the author’s social media account on Wednesday. “It has been a privilege and a great honor to share in his life. I want to thank you, his fans and friends for all the support, for all the good times and all the adventures you have shared with him.”
Cussler, born in Aurora, Illinois in 1931, was an Eagle Scout who went on to serve in the military during the Korean War. While working in advertising in the 1960s, he took up writing fiction on the side and found success in thriller novels featuring the swaggering Dirk Pitt, a decorated Air Force pilot on loan to a fictional maritime agency who often finds himself a human monkey wrench thrust into the center of international intrigue and buried treasure.
Importantly, Pitt was legendary

Source: Guns.com