The Mediterranian Caper - Clive Cussler (Audiobook)

Audiobook Reader:  Michael Prichard

Books on Tape, 1992,

ISBN 978-0736699051

Originally published by Sphere Books, 1973

Listened to in October 2011, at age 33

First time read or listened to

This is the first book in the “Dirk Pitt” series of novels. Well, I guess there’s a prequel – it was written later on, though, and these books don’t need to be read in order.  It’s an adventure story that’s been compared to James Bond, or Indiana Jones.  They’re both fair comparisons.

Publisher’s summary via Amazon.com:

On an isolated Greek island, a World War I fighter plane attacks a modern U.S. Air Force base--a mysterious saboteur preys on an American scientific expedition--and Dirk Pitt plays a deadly game of hunter and hunted with the elusive head of an international smuggling ring.

My, but that's a brief synopsis.  But it hits the high points.

Reactions after the break:

Overall:

The book was generally good, but it was over-written in quite a few places, and the audiobook reader made the book much worse than it was.  Other than that, I had no complaints for this book – it is, as expected, an action/mystery with humour, and it included many of the tropes of that style of book. For what it was, it was all right.

Rating: 3

Setting:

The book was set in the seventies, on a Greek island.  There is an unbelievable amount of smoking, which I think is just a sign of the times, but it really jumped out at me.  The setting was vividly described and jumped to life.

Characters:

Dirk Pitt is Superman.  He can get shot in the leg, and then stand and visit with the bad guy for 15 minutes.  He can kill an attack dog in the dark with a knife.  “His face was a study in masculinity”.  Blech.  He’s a little too much, but makes up for it with humor and wish fulfillment.  There isn’t much of a character development arc, and the supporting characters aren’t anything special.  Even the sidekick (who I know better from other books) isn’t particularly well fleshed out.  The characters were not a strong point of the story.

Plot: 

It was a pretty simple action/mystery plot.  All the traditional elements were there – the gloating evil genius, the girl, the classic cars (and planes).  An awful pile of coincidences.  Double crosses.  An action hero who really shouldn’t be where his is, doing things that he really shouldn’t be doing, but somehow it’s all ok.  Cliched, but it works.  Nothing greatly surprising, but it was decent.

Audiobook reader:

The audiobook reader was poor.  He was firmly set on the “NPR drone” –a low emotion, steadily paced, over-enunciated performance.  This style worked well in a book like 1984, but very poorly in a book like this, which features lots of banter between the main character and his friend / sidekick.

Other Opinions:

Not much out there other than places like ebay and amazon.  Here are a few for the dead tree version: 

Never Felt Better - Apparently, Dirk Pitt is a dick.  I would tend to agree, especially in the first few books.  What I remember of some of the later books is somewhat better.

Chamber of Reviews - Liked the book.

Rough Edges - Liked the book, too.