Review: Lost Empire (Sam and Remi Fargo #2) - Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

A while back I reran the review I posted 15 years ago for SPARTAN GOLD, the first novel in Clive Cussler’s series about married treasure hunters and adventurers Sam and Remi Fargo. I never got back to the series, but reading that review again prompted me to do so. I picked up the second book, LOST EMPIRE, once again written by Cussler and Grant Blackwood and available on Amazon in e-book, audio, paperback, and hardcover editions. Cussler had several collaborators on the Fargo series, and I’m assuming they did the bulk of the actual writing, with Cussler contributing to the plots.

LOST EMPIRE is actually kind of a hard book to describe because it really has a kitchen sink plot. It opens with a ship sailing from London in 1864, jumps to Sam and Remi finding the bell from a sunken ship off the coast of Zanzibar, then back around the world to Mexico where the newly elected president of the country sends a sinister assassin after the Fargos. From there, the action bounces back and forth from California to Madagascar to Krakatoa (which is actually west of Java, not east, no matter what the movie title says). We get a bunch of running, jumping, swimming, car chases, fighting, and an underground encounter with a den of crocodiles that’s a pretty good scene. Not surprisingly, there’s even a cameo appearance by Clive Cussler his own self as he gives Sam and Remi a hand in their adventure. The whole thing revolves around a 19^th Century British secret agent, cryptography, a lost Confederate ship, and the origins of the Aztec Empire.

As I’ve mentioned before, Livia and I have a saying whenever we’re watching a movie or TV show where the plot gets so convoluted and silly that you have to just accept it for it is: “Sure. Why not?” LOST EMPIRE is a “Sure. Why not?” book. I guess the plot makes sense, but I don’t really know because eventually I stopped trying to keep up with it and just went along for the ride. The action scenes are well-done, the settings are colorful, Sam and Remi are very likable protagonists, and the villains are suitably despicable.

I’ve been told by several friends that the entries where Cussler collaborated with Thomas Perry are the best books in the series. Maybe I’ll skip ahead to them. The next book appears to be a direct sequel to this one, though, and I have just enough OCD to feel like I ought to read it. We’ll see. For now, I enjoyed LOST EMPIRE and am glad I read it, but it didn’t win me over completely. Take that for what it’s worth.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Spartan Gold - Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

Every so often I get in the mood for a big, globe-trotting thriller with a lot of historical background. SPARTAN GOLD, the first book in a new series by Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood, fits the bill quite nicely.

Almost like a Harry Stephen Keeler novel, this one starts out with a lot of seemingly unconnected elements – Napolean making a startling discovery in an ice cave in 1800; a German mini-sub sunk for sixty years in a Delaware river; a Ukrainian gangster originally from Turkmenistan who believes himself to be a direct descendant of the ancient Persian emperor Xerxes the Great – and weaves them all together into a coherent story. The protagonists responsible for untangling all of this and staying alive through an assortment of dangers are husband-and-wife scientists and treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo.

If you’re thinking this sounds a little like a Gabriel Hunt novel, you’re not far wrong in some respects, that is, if Gabriel were married. Sam and Remi are even independently wealthy and have the Fargo Foundation to finance their adventures. SPARTAN GOLD is much longer than a Gabriel Hunt novel, though, and lacks the breakneck pace. Which is not to say that it doesn’t have considerable appeal of its own.

Whoever did the bulk of the writing in this book (I suspect Blackwood, although I should stress that I have absolutely no knowledge of whether that’s correct) does a good job of making Sam and Remi very likeable characters who are easy to root for. Likewise, the frequent infodumps are easy to follow and not obtrusive. The plot is complex but winds up making perfect sense, at least as far as I could tell. My biggest complaint is that the ending doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights I would have preferred. Anybody who’s read very many of my books knows my motto: If you’re going over the top anyway, you might as well go ’way over.

I get bored easily with long books, but I didn’t have any trouble staying with SPARTAN GOLD. It’s worth reading, and I won’t hesitate to pick up the next one in the series when it comes out.

(Good intentions, road to hell, etc., etc. When this post originally appeared on May 18, 2010, I had every intention of reading the next Fargo novel from Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood. But you guessed it, I never did. And when I looked it up, I was surprised to see that the series is still going on, with the 13th book due to be released next winter. Blackwood wrote a couple more after this, then Thomas Perry took over for two books, Russell Blake wrote two, and Robin Burcell has done all of them since then, including the one in the pipeline. I'm tempted to read the two that Thomas Perry wrote since I know his work is pretty good. But good intentions . . .)

Spartan Gold - Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

Every so often I get in the mood for a big, globe-trotting thriller with a lot of historical background. SPARTAN GOLD, the first book in a new series by Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood, fits the bill quite nicely.

Almost like a Harry Stephen Keeler novel, this one starts out with a lot of seemingly unconnected elements – Napolean making a startling discovery in an ice cave in 1800; a German mini-sub sunk for sixty years in a Delaware river; a Ukrainian gangster originally from Turkmenistan who believes himself to be a direct descendant of the ancient Persian emperor Xerxes the Great – and weaves them all together into a coherent story. The protagonists responsible for untangling all of this and staying alive through an assortment of dangers are husband-and-wife scientists and treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo.

If you’re thinking this sounds a little like a Gabriel Hunt novel, you’re not far wrong in some respects, that is, if Gabriel were married. Sam and Remi are even independently wealthy and have the Fargo Foundation to finance their adventures. SPARTAN GOLD is much longer than a Gabriel Hunt novel, though, and lacks the breakneck pace. Which is not to say that it doesn’t have considerable appeal of its own.

Whoever did the bulk of the writing in this book (I suspect Blackwood, although I should stress that I have absolutely no knowledge of whether that’s correct) does a good job of making Sam and Remi very likeable characters who are easy to root for. Likewise, the frequent infodumps are easy to follow and not obtrusive. The plot is complex but winds up making perfect sense, at least as far as I could tell. My biggest complaint is that the ending doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights I would have preferred. Anybody who’s read very many of my books knows my motto: If you’re going over the top anyway, you might as well go ’way over.

I get bored easily with long books, but I didn’t have any trouble staying with SPARTAN GOLD. It’s worth reading, and I won’t hesitate to pick up the next one in the series when it comes out.