Golden Buddha [Hardcover]

A group of well financed mercenaries, a boat that looks like a wreck but contains high tech defensive and offensive systems and can travel 70 knots a Golden Buddha that weighs 696 pounds of solid gold, a crooked art dealer, two egotistical billionaires and a standoff between the Russians and the Chinese. Stir it all up and you have a romping adventure.

In Clive Cussler's spin-off series from his Dirk Pitt series he has established another skilful and charismatic hero.

In the first book of the series we start off with a minor assignment for the Chairman of the Corporation (Juan Cabrillo) in Cuba to rescue some political prisoners in an air tight escape proof jail. However to the employees of the Corporation this just meant a little more planning.

With their usual bravado they breached the jail and released the prisoners who were in poor physical condition.

Having the actually carry 5 prisoners on their backs because of the weakened condition they were in the crew were able to get all the prisoners back to the Oregon and swiftly taken to Puerto Rico to be eventually transferred to Florida.

This adventure series is as much about the Oregon as it is about its crew. The Oregon is described as 560 feet long, with a 75 foot beam. It has internal water tanks so it can intake water and sink low so that it looks like it has a load of something on board, or pump the water tanks out and site high. This is particularly important when going for top speed which is noted as 70 knots (approx 80mph).

Also on board are two submarines, a helicopter, ATV's, sea to air missiles, anti aircraft guns and explosives galore.

The main adventure in the book is return to Golden Buddha to the Dalai Lama the religious leader of Tibet.

The crooked art dealer comes into play as while transporting the Golden Buddha to one billionaire he swaps in a fake and sells the original to another billionaire. It is up to the Corporation to return the real Golden Buddha to the Dalai Lama who is returning to Tibet after 20 years in exile.

For readers who are into politics the story line gives many insights into the political machinations that occurs when political leaders are guessing what is going on and not really aware of what is going on. This is highly entertaining as we know, sort of, what is really going on and can laugh at all the postering going on.

HIGHLY recommended

I almost never post reviews, but Clive Cussler is my favorite author and I am so disappointed in Golden Buddha, it's not funny. A friend
who used to write book reviews and still gets review copies gave this to me because he knows I love Cussler. Golden Buddha should
have been written as a TV Movie of the Week and Cussler's name taken off of it. I can't believe the so-called 'professional' reviewers
saying this is as good as the Dirk Pitt and Kurt Austin series. Puh-leeze! I am hoping Cussler's newest Dirk Pitt novel, Trojan Odyssey is
tons better than this, or he's lost a loyal fan.

There comes a time when authors "jump the shark." Tom Clancy's was when he began "writing" the Net Force series (which I fondly call Net Farce); John Grisham did it with The King Of Torts; Kathy Reichs latest, Bare Bones, comes close (her rant at the end is out of character for the main character, Tempe Brennan). For Clive Cussler, it's Golden Buddha.

Although his name is prominent on the cover, this latest book is co-written with Craig Dirgo, who's written with Cussler before on The Sea Hunters books. In those, you can obviously tell which parts Cussler wrote and which Dirgo wrote - Dirgo's parts did not flow as well and sometimes contained inaccuracies in the facts. He should take a writing class.

Golden Buddha is a new series called The Oregon Files, featuring a main character named Juan Cabrillo who is tall, blonde and blue-eyed (much like Kurt Austin in the other spinoff series by Cussler and Paul Kemprecos). He and his crew of the ship Oregon take on "jobs" that most mercenaries wouldn't touch. They all showed up in a previous Dirk Pitt novel , Flood Tide, and I guess Cussler thought it would be a good spinoff. It could've been, but it isn't.

First of all, the book is about putting the Dalai Lama back in power in Tibet, which is why a very large golden Buddha must be recovered - there is a secret compartment in it with important information. I wish the Dalai Lama character hadn't been based on a real person - this made the entire story very unrealistic (if it does come true by 2005, the date in the book, I'll eat my hat). A fictional religious leader would have been a better bet. Also, Russian President Putin is named, but the President of the USA is not - he's just called the President. Who says Putin will still be in power in 2005? These inconsistencies drove me nuts.

The book reads like a TV movie waiting to be made. There are way too many characters to keep track of (even with the listing of each character's name and function at the beginning of the book) and the writing could have been much better, if Cussler had written more of it. You can tell which parts he wrote versus Dirgo - Cussler's flows beautifully, while Dirgo's is choppy and often contained odd words (the worst was "containerized ship" - as far as I know, they're more commonly known as container ships).

Characters use cutesy comments way too much - I don't know anyone in real life who talks like these people.

Scenes jumped helter skelter and I began getting confused, so I started skipping parts.

The best part of this book was near the beginning when Cabrillo and his crew have to recover the golden Buddha from a party in Macau. That was well done and exciting.

I love the Dirk Pitt adventures and the Kurt Austin books, but if the next Oregon Files is "cowritten" with Dirgo, I'll pass.