Held annually since 2005, Cussler Con is the highlight for members of the Clive Cussler Collector’s Society (CCCS). Founded by Wayne Valero and Bruce Kenfield, the CCCS elevates the author’s fandom to another level. Not only does the organization provide its members with a steady stream of facts and news about Clive, the once-a-year convention offers the opportunity to spend a weekend with the author and his associates.
“I read Raise the Titanic! in 1976,” Wayne Valero said, “and really enjoyed the book. My wife, Cristy, is a big reader and for my birthday she gave me a copy of Night Probe! I was hooked.” By 1990, Valero, who lived in Denver and worked for the Denver Post, had assembled a modest collection of Clive’s hardcovers and paperbacks. When he learned Clive was doing a signing for Dragon at a local bookstore, Valero, unfortunately, was scheduled to work.
On Friday, he dropped off a stack of his books at the bookstore, along with a note asking Clive to sign them. He also inquired if any of Clive’s early books had been published in hardcover since he had only seen them in paperback. Returning to the store, Valero found a note from Clive stuck in one of the books - not only did he have a hardcover copy of Iceberg, but Valero was welcome to it.
“Clive was living on Lookout Mountain,” Valero said. “I was driving a 1972 Malibu and didn’t want to show up in that car, so I borrowed my best friend’s brand new Chevy Cavalier. My son came along and after visiting with Clive and Barbara, Clive disappeared in his office and came out with a pristine first edition hardcover copy of Iceberg. He inscribed it, ‘To Wayne, who is my inspiration for Dirk Pitt. Your pal, Clive Cussler.’ Today, that book is the Holy Grail for Cussler collectors. A pristine copy can sell for $2,000.” Asked if Clive was impressed with his borrowed Cavalier, Valero laughed. “I don’t think Clive looked to see what kind of car I was driving.”
As his collection grew, Valero began to communicate with other Cussler fans on Simon & Schuster’s internet forums, a service provided by the publisher for readers to find information about author’s bios, news, and upcoming releases. When he found out other fans were collecting Clive’s books, Valero wrote, The Collector’s Guide To Clive Cussler. In his introduction, Paul McCarthy wrote, “Wherever you go in the world of Clive Cussler, take The Collector’s Guide with you and use it to get even more pleasure and satisfaction from being one of Clive’s true fans. That’s what I’m doing. Enjoy!”
“The book was published privately in 2002,” Valero said. “I was distributing them on the S&S website. Bruce Kenfield bought a dozen copies, sight unseen.” When the two men realized they shared the same passion, Kenfield flew to Denver to see Valero’s collection, and the CSSS was incorporated in 2002.
Bruce Kenfield owns a construction company in Woodburn, Oregon. He also received his first Cussler book as a birthday present. “It was Cyclops,” he says. “I’ve never been what you would call a reader, but I enjoyed Clive’s writing and began to look for more books. I had no idea how popular Clive was, and thought I was the only person who knew about him. When I found the Simon & Schuster forum I couldn’t believe it. Not only were there thousands of fans, Wayne had written a book about collecting Clive’s books. It was exciting to find out there were so many fans out there who liked Clive, but it was more fun when I thought I was the only guy who was reading his books.”
Wayne Valero also wrote: An Approach to Understanding Maritime Art and Collecting Cussler: An Ethical Approach. After a short illness, Wayne Valero died in 2016.
Attesting to Clive’s remarkable popularity, the Society of Cusslermen (SOC) maintains an internet site providing Clive’s fans access to, “pictures, details and information of every book published throughout the US and UK.” The SOC’s founder, Dave Hyatt, was introduced to Dirk Pitt in 1973. “I stopped into a bookstore on my lunch break and the clerk suggested I might like The Mediterranean Caper.” Hyatt finished the book that night and went back to the store looking for more, but the clerk informed it was Clive’s only book. Two years later, the same clerk called Hyatt to tell him Iceberg had just arrived. “I actually ran over to the store and have been reading and collecting his books ever since.”
After Hyatt built his website, he met Wayne Valero. “Wayne was a little upset,” Hyatt says. “He was in the process of developing his own collector society’s website. I went to several CCCS conventions, but ultimately they told me I wasn’t welcome.” Valero admits there has been some animosity between the CCCS and SOC. “We’ve had our run-ins, but ultimately we all share the same interest - Clive and his work. There is room for everybody.”
When Paul McCarthy finished his introduction to Wayne Valero’s The Collector’s Guide to Clive Cussler, he sent a copy to Clive. “A few days later,” McCarthy says, “Clive called and told me it was fine, with one exception - I had neglected to call him a ‘curmudgeon.’”
It could be the way he looks, the way he walks, perhaps the way he talks. Whatever it is, Clive is often characterized as cantankerous. The Denver newspapers - the same papers that lionized him as the city’s “big author” after Raise the Titanic! became a bestseller - seem to relish referring to him as “gruff,” “grouchy,” and a “literary curmudgeon.” In the media frenzy surrounding the courtroom battle between Clive and Crusader Entertainment, terms like “crotchety old man . . . grumpy cuss . . . bad tempered” were tossed around by the press.
The name calling is perplexing to those who know Clive, especially his fans. “Anybody who has attended a convention or one of Clive’s book signings,” Valero states, “cannot help but be impressed by Clive’s consideration for his fans and co-writers. Even when it’s obvious Clive is tired, he will go out of his way to spend time with everybody present and sign books until I’m afraid his arm will fall off.”
CCCS member Tom Gwinn agrees. “Clive has always been accessible. One of my best memories was the Friday evening get-together at the first Denver convention. Clive arrived in a beautiful Locomobile and spent the rest of the night talking to anybody and everybody. It felt more like we were hanging out with an old friend instead of a world-famous author.”
During the twenty-plus years Clive has been involved with the Poisoned Pen bookstore, Barbara Peters notes, “Clive can come off as gruff, but I’ve learned to get along with him, and we have a wonderful relationship. When he does get a little grumpy, or starts to bitch about something, I simply tell him to stop, and he stops. One of the things I admire most is Clive’s insistence that his co-authors share in his credit. Clive has always been transparent about his projects, unlike some authors we know who have secret co-authors.” She picks up a copy of The Wrecker and opens it to the title page, “Clive will not autograph a book for us unless the co-author has also signed - Clive is a very generous man.”
If Clive has an Achilles’ heel, it may be that he is too generous. “I’ve never understood assertions my father is a grouch,” Dirk says. “Clive will let people into his life who turned out to be nothing but bullshit artists - people who you or I would spend some time with and say this guy is full of it. Maybe Clive just likes a good story, they stroke his ego, or he wants to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know, but there’s been a series of these jokers.”
“I’ve always been loyal,” Clive says, frowning. “To a fault, I suppose. When I became successful, everybody started to come out of the woodwork. First, it was the cleaning lady who hit Barbara up for a thousand bucks and we never saw her again. Next, a friend asked me for $5,000 and he also disappeared. Another gave me a story about how he and his wife wanted to build their retirement log cabin on a lot in Washington State, but some evil corporation was after the land. I sent them $17,000 and that’s the last I heard from them.”
During the 1980s, Clive hired a publicist he met at one of the car auctions to manage his fan letters, press releases, and interview requests. “Everything worked fine for the first ten years,” Clive says. “Then she not only stopped doing the things she was hired to do, there were some money issues. We could have fi
led criminal charges, but I let her down easy and even gave her a letter stating we had a nice association.”
“There was one exception,” Clive says, chuckling. “A friend of Dirk’s asked me to loan him $800 for his school tuition. I couldn’t believe it when, a few months later, he showed up with a check and handed it to me. I told him to keep it. He’s the only one who paid me back.”
One of the most bizarre scams foisted on Clive involved fabricated cover blurbs. On April 11, 1991, Peter Lampack announced Simon & Schuster had paid a staggering $920,000 to his client, Derek V. Van Arman, for his first novel, The Killing Time. Derek V Goodwin (the author’s real name) described himself as “a Washington-based communications specialist and investigator in national security who has been employed by numerous federal agencies and maintains sensitive clearances in the United States Government.”
When Van Arman originally presented his manuscript, he included ringing endorsements from John Le Carre, Joseph Wambaugh, and Clive Cussler. Two days after Lampack announced the huge payoff, The New York Times revealed, “A Spy Novel’s Boosters, It Seems Aren’t.” Le Carre and Wambaugh both avowed they had never seen the book or had any contact with the author. Le Carre labeled the use of his name, “nothing but straight fraud.” Wambaugh said he felt “both angry and bemused that my name had been attached to the scheme.”
Unlike Le Carre and Wambaugh, Clive had not only seen the book, but he had a long-standing relationship with the author.
“Barbara and I met Derek and his wife when they lived in Washington,” Clive says. “After he and Susan moved to Phoenix, we spent a lot of time socializing. He was a real character and told me all sorts of stories about Washington and the government. During the next ten years, I not only loaned Derek money but when he decided to write a book, I rewrote a few of the chapters. When The New York Times came out with the story that Le Carre’s and Wambaugh’s blurbs were faked, I couldn’t believe it. There was no indication Derek was running a scam. Barbara was especially shaken because she thought Derek and Susan were our close friends.”
Goodwin claimed he had been “completely duped,” and the bogus blurbs were the work of someone with a personal grudge or a former CIA agent. Simon & Schuster did not swallow the yarn and canceled the deal. Lampack eventually sold The Killing Time to Dutton for $500,000 (proving the axiom, no publicity is bad publicity). When the book was published in 1992, Clive sent Goodwin a copy with a letter. “I asked him to autograph the book and while he was at it, please send a check for the $143,000 he owed me. We never had to go to court since the royalties came to Peter who signed them over to me.” Goodwin sent another manuscript to Lampack, but the agent declared it was unpublishable and Clive has never heard from Goodwin again.
Despite his unfortunate experiences with fair-weather friends and rip-off artists, Clive remains upbeat. “I should be cynical, but I’m not. It’s just the way I am. At least I’m not like Babe Ruth, who gave away money to everybody he met.”
Dick Klein, Clive’s childhood friend and one-time gas station partner, was asked if Clive’s success has changed him. “No, he’s the same old Clive he was fifty years ago. My wife and I have visited him on various occasions, and we always end up talking about the old days. It’s like we’re the same young guys who were pumping gas in Alhambra.” Klein does have one complaint. “When we go out to dinner, I don’t want Clive to think he has to always pick up the check, but we always end up in places I can’t afford.” Klein laughs, “Maybe one of these days I can convince him to go to Applebee’s.”
Author Robyn Carr met Clive when they were both scheduled to speak at the Scottsdale Library. “It was twenty-some years ago,” Carr remembers. “I thought he was an extremely interesting guy. We were living in Arizona, and my husband and I and Clive and Barbara became good friends. Clive has always tried to put on this gruff exterior, but the truth is, he a wonderful man, always willing to help other writers.”
Carr now lives in Henderson, Nevada, and is a major supporter of the local library where she hosts an interview series with authors called Carr Chat.” “When Clive found out we were planning a fund-raiser for the library,” Carr says, “He and Janet showed up without me having to ask. That’s the kind of man he is.”
“I get infuriated,” Janet says, “when somebody calls Clive disagreeable or a curmudgeon. There was a lot of that during the trial from people who have never even met him. When we go to the conventions, book signings, and other events, I am always amazed how kind and gracious Clive is to everyone. He gives so much of himself.”
Craftsman Fred Tourneau, the man responsible for the museum quality ship models displayed in Clive’s studio, refers to his patron as “a prince.” On one occasion, Clive arrived at Tourneau’s house to check on a model’s progress and was surprised to see a Ferrari with “MD” plates parked in the driveway. The car’s owner, it turned out, was picking up a model he had commissioned. While Clive waited, he could hear the two men talking. “The guy was badgering Fred to drop his price,” Clive says. “Like most artists, Fred was always getting taken advantage of.”
After hearing all he could stand, Clive announced he would like to buy the model in question. Annoyed, the haggler wanted to know who the hell Clive was and why was he getting involved. Clive explained he was one of Tourneau’s clients and since it was obvious he did not want the model, Clive would love to add it to his collection. “That did it,” Clive says. “He told Fred he would give him a couple hundred more and we went back and forth. By the time we got done, he ended up writing a check for a great deal more than the original price.” After the irritated doctor screeched away in his Ferrari, Tourneau looked at the check with a dazed expression. Clive laughed, “Fred, for once, you got paid what it’s worth!”
A month after Medusa, the eighth book in the NUMA Files series, was published, Paul Kemprecos’s venerable collaboration with Clive came to an end. “We started with Serpent in 1999, and finished with Medusa, in June 2009,” Kemprecos said. “It was a great run. The Numa Files have been successful far beyond our expectations, but the task of turning out eight fat books in ten years was catching up with me. Coming up with fresh concepts and the demanding deadlines were having a negative effect on my stress level.” Now able to work at his own pace, Kemprecos is concentrating on a series featuring a team of crime fighters led by an undersea robotics engineer and another book based on his original “Soc” Socarides detective series.
Faced with the prospect of replacing Kemprecos, Clive already had somebody in mind. “Janet and I were flying someplace,” Clive says. “We were in an airport bookstore, and I bought a novel by Graham Brown. Both of us thought it was outstanding.” At Clive’s suggestion, Peter Lampack contacted Brown’s editor at Random House. “I had just come back from a book signing in Nashville,” Brown says. “There was a message from my editor - Peter Lampack, Clive Cussler’s agent, would like to get in touch with me.” Brown recalls being perplexed. “Why does Cussler want to talk to me? He uses co-writers, I write adventure novels, Clive wants me to work with him. No, I told myself, be realistic. He’s simply organizing an event for Arizona authors and wants me to speak. I was going around and around and didn’t know what to think.”
When Brown called Lampack, the agent explained Clive had read several of his books and was impressed with the dialogue and plots. They were looking for a co-writer and would he be interested? “Would I be interested?” Brown exclaims, “Of course I was interested! Clive was somewhere in Africa, but he would be in touch with me. After I hung up, I sat on my balcony wondering what the hell had just happened.”
“I grew up in Connecticut, Illinois, and Pennsylvania,” Brown says. “My father worked for British Airways. When the school year started, my friends and I would compare our summers. They went to Disneyland and Great Adventure amusement park. My family had traveled to England or Egypt. At the time I would have preferred Disneyland, but later realized the opportunity to travel inspired me to think of the world as
a much bigger place - a major benefit to my writing.”
Brown read his first Cussler book on one of his family’s trips to Europe. “Walking down the aisle, everybody on that airplane, including me, was reading a book with a ship’s stern on the cover. It was Raise the Titanic! Brown attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical School in Prescott, Arizona. “I graduated into a bad economy,” Brown explains. “Airlines were laying off pilots. I ended up working at a series of odd jobs and, in my spare time, tried to write a thriller.”
When Brown realized it might be a long time before the airlines were hiring, he enrolled in law school at Arizona State. “My plan,” he relates, “was to write while I was going to school. I actually finished a draft, but my grades took a nose dive, and I had to put it away.” After practicing law for several years, Brown discovered the job required a love for paperwork and arguing with people, two things he dislikes immensely. Moving to California, he spent the next five years working for a health care company.
Brown credits his ex-wife with prodding his stalled writing career. “She suggested I should attend the Mauri Writers Conference,” he says. “That was 2006. I figured, even if it proved to be a waste of time, we would have a nice vacation. The conference turned out to be a cross roads for me. It was so exciting to meet like-minded people. That experience inspired me to get serious.”
A year later, Brown finished his novel. Looking for an agent, he attended Thrillerfest in New York. “Fortune smiled on me when I met Barbara Poelle with the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. After I gave her my pitch, she told me it was the worst thing she’d heard all week, but for some reason, wanted me to send her ten pages.”