Book Review: Black Wind by Clive & Dirk Cussler

Black Wind by Clive Cussler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A long-range plan by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea conquer the South is spearheaded by a businessman with a deadly plan to strike the United States with a pandemic of a hybrid strain of smallpox, but Dirk Pitt Jr. appears on the scene. Black Wind is the eighteen novel of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series the first featuring the young Pitt in the lead as well as the first with Cussler’s son Dirk as his co-author.

In December 1944, the commanding officer of the Japanese submarine I-403 is given orders to launch a mysterious attack on the United States, a mission involving Japan’s notorious biological warfare group, Unit 731. The I-403 reaches the U.S. northwest coast but is sunk before the mission can be carried out. Over 62 years later, a team of CDC researchers, including field epidemiologist Sarah Matson, are unexpectedly infected by a deadly and mystery illness in the Aleutian Islands; they are rescued by Dirk Pitt Jr. (hereinafter Pitt Jr.), who is nearby on a NUMA research vessel. Pitt Jr, with friend and coworker Jack Dahlgren, return to the site to investigate, but their helicopter is downed by gunfire from a mysterious trawler. They survive, eventually determining that the illness resulted from a toxic compound of cyanide and smallpox. In Japan, the U.S. ambassador is golfing with his British counterpart when he is assassinated by a sniper named Tongju. Tongju later assassinates the ambassador’s deputy and a semiconductor executive, leaving clues that appear to identify him as a member of a Japanese terrorist group. Investigating the toxin, Pitt Jr. consults marine-history researcher St. Julien Perlmutter, who finds records of the I-403. Pitt Jr. and Dahlgren find and dive on the sunken I-403, but its mysterious ordnance has been removed. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Dirk Pitt senior (hereinafter referred to simply as Dirk) and his friend and colleague Al Giordino are also discovering forgotten Japanese ordnance that is poisoning marine life. In Incheon, South Korea, Dae-jong Kang, a multi-millionaire industrialist, is secretly a North Korean sleeper agent who has been using corruption to press for rapid reunification of the divided peninsula under the DPRK's rule. Kang reviews his plans with his assistant; they include framing a U.S. serviceman for the murder of a South Korean girl to foment unrest, while Tongju retrieves more of the World War II toxin from a second sunken submarine. Learning of the interference of Pitt Jr., Kang sends assassins to eliminate him, but they fail through ruin a classic car Pitt Jr. had just purchased. NUMA researcher Hiram Yeager has discovered that the toxic ordnance was also carried by a Japanese submarine lost in the South China Sea. Pitt Jr. joins his sister Summer aboard a NUMA salvage vessel that locates the wreck, but Tongju and his commando team seize the vessel. After taking the recovered toxin and kidnapping Pitt Jr and Summer, the North Koreans sabotage the salvage ship and leave the imprisoned crew to drown, but actions by the Pitt siblings before leaving enables everyone to escape. Pitt Jr. and Summer are taken to Kang’s yacht, where the multimillionaire taunts them with a general threat of infecting the U.S. with the hybrid toxin, then leaves them to drown. They escape and make their way back to the United States. Unaware of the exact nature of Kang’s plan, the NUMA team coordinates with government agencies to search for cargo vessels that might be carrying the toxin. However, the real plan goes forward as Tongju and his commando team pirate Sea Launch, a seaborne rocket-launching platform, preparing to fire a toxin-laden warhead at a G8 summit meeting in Los Angeles. When Dirk and Giordino spot the launch platform from a blimp, a deadly countdown is already underway. However, Dirk manages to infiltrate and alter the launch, resulting in the rocket crashing harmlessly into the sea. In the final showdown, Pitt Jr. and a team of Navy SEALs infiltrate Kang's base as he prepares his final getaway aboard his luxury yacht. However, after a showdown on the bridge, Pitt Jr. sends Kang and his yacht to a fiery crash.

As this is the first book that featured the younger Pitt as the main character, his character was more rounded out than his previous appearance. Unfortunately, he is too much of a chip off the ol’ block from his father, in fact its hard to see any differences between the two from physical appearance to their interests (classic cars as shown in this novel) and even getting himself onto a SEAL mission. It could be said that there are a variety of ways that a younger character could be seen as their parent’s kid, being exactly alike is the cheap way out. The overall plot of the book is one of the better ones of the series and an improvement over some of the previous outings, save for a few glaring head scratch moments that don’t ruin things but diminish the quality enough. The evil mastermind (Kang) and his top henchman (Tongju) are among the best in the series as well as head and shoulders over any since probably Inca Gold. If there is one glaring thing in the book, it’s that Summer Pitt sometimes feels like an add on though she’s given enough agency to be more than a damsel-in-distress due to some genes from her father, I guess.

Black Wind is a return to the better quality of books in the Dirk Pitt series, whether it’s focusing the series on a younger protagonist or that fact that Clive Cussler was joined by his son Dirk in writing the book can be argued. While not perfect and nor the best in the series, this is a very fun and engaging read.

View all my reviews