Clive Cussler predominately writes sea-faring adventure stories involving swash buckling protagonists. He loosely bases his entertaining stories on historical events and documents. In Plague Ship, he uses stories of Noah's Ark, and in The Navigator, he draws extensively on myths, documents, and history from the Free Masons, the Phoenicians, Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon. His thirty-six books include fiction, non-fiction, and one children’s story. His co-authors include his son, Dirk Cussler, as well as, Paul Kemprecos, Craig Dirgo, and Jack Du Brul. In his books you will find a cameo appearance of himself as well as several of his hobbies including finding shipwrecks and classic cars.
For the most part his novels follow three story lines. Two of the story lines capture the reader by relating tales of the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA), a Federal government agency that explores anomalies on and under the ocean. In real life, Clive directs the activities of NUMA which is a non-profit organization that searches for shipwrecks. They have found over sixty historically significant ship wrecks with the rights to the artifacts going to museums and universities. The third story line, Oregon Files, tells the story of a mercenary group that works out of a converted mercantile ship, and they hire themselves out to governments.
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