#pacific vortex!

Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler

Dirk Pitt, death-defying adventurer and deep-sea expert, is out to the ultimate test as he plunges into the perilous waters of the Pacific Vortex -- a fog-shrouded sea zone where dozens of ships have vanished without a trace. The latest victim is the awesome superb Starbuck, America's deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt's job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt's mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins-and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island-the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!

First Book in the Dirk Pitt series

Book Title: Pacific Vortex!

Author: Clive Cussler Year Published: 1982 Genre: Fiction/Action/Adventure/Suspense Book Summary (preferably from the jacket): Dirk Pitt, death-defying adventurer and deep-sea expert, is put to the ultimate test as he plunges into the perilous waters of the Pacific Vortex -- a fog-shrouded sea zone where dozens of ships have vanished without a trace. The latest victim is the awesome supersub Starbuck, America's deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt's job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt's mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins -- and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous woman ever to enter Pitt's life. As the countdown heads toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island -- the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!

Why you love it: Okay, take Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Thomas Magnum and roll them together and you have Dirk Pitt. The series of books with Dirk as the main character are fun to read with lots of action/adventure, archaeology naval salvage, and mystery solving. There is a bit of rescuing of damsels as well, but the adventure is the real reason to read these books.