Thriller Spotlight with Joel C. Rosenberg

Historical fiction, when done right, can be amazing. The reader is treated not only to a thrill ride of a story but is given the added bonus of being transported to an intriguing and adventurous time and place very different from their own.

There are three basic types of historical fiction. The first, and typically the longest, are epic historical sagas. Sometimes these are contained in one book, like the works of James Michener and Edward Rutherfurd. Other authors spread their stories over several volumes, such as James Clavell with his Asian Saga and Ken Follett with the Kingsbridge series. Think, too, of ancient tales like Odyssey and Iliad. My wife’s favorite and mine: Exodus by Leon Uris, which takes readers into the fascinating and tense days surrounding the prophetic rebirth of the modern State of Israel in 1948.

A second type places the reader into an event or era and is designed to teach through experience. This is what I did with my historical thriller, The Auschwitz Escape, still my favorite of all my novels. I wanted you, the reader, to see, hear, and feel the horror, the fear, and the courage of the heroes who risked so much to break free from the confines of that death camp.

The third type is simply a rollicking story that happens to be set in a different time period. While there may be some learning going on, the primary goal is just to take the reader on an exciting adventure. It’s like holding a fish in a net and looking at five tanks into which you could drop it—each one marked with a different era and location in history. In Clive Cussler The Sea Wolves (an Isaac Bell Adventure), author Jack Du Brul dropped the fish into the tank that bore the label “Early Twentieth Century New York.”

Clive Cussler began his writing career creating exciting maritime stories centered around his hero Dirk Pitt. This was a series that would see twenty-six novels published over nearly forty years. Along the way, he became a franchise, much like James Patterson. Cussler wrote less himself, bringing on coauthors for his books. This allowed him to launch numerous other book series, including the one we are looking at today. In 2020, Cussler passed away with nearly eighty books bearing his name.

Jack Du Brul, author of his own Philip Mercer series, first wrote for Cussler’s Oregon Files series, publishing seven books before stepping away in 2013. Then, in 2019, he was brought back into the Cussler franchise to write for the Isaac Bell Adventures. The Sea Wolves, released November 2022, is his third offering in the series, and it is just plain fun.

It is the middle of the twentieth century’s second decade and war has broken out overseas. America remains officially neutral in the European conflict. However, that does not preclude them from sending weapons and war matériel across the pond to the Brits. The problem is that somehow the ships containing these secret stashes from the U.S. are being identified and sunk by German U-boats at an alarming rate. In steps Isaac Bell, the brilliant lead sleuth of the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Will he be able to break the German spy ring before more American sailors are drowned in the depths of the icy Atlantic?

If you are a fan of American history, you will love this book. But even if you aren’t, you’ll still have a good time. The novel’s self-description as an “adventure” rather than a “thriller” is perfect. The whole feel is a throwback to the milieu of Dick Tracy and the novels of Dashiell Hammett. The history isn’t in your face so that it feels like you’re trapped in a lecture poorly disguised as a novel. Instead, it is just there like the air that the novel breathes. Then, along the way, the fun little historical tidbits are presented as low-hanging fruit, ready for the reader to pluck and enjoy without any additional effort. You’ll love getting into the era, and you’ll enjoy the historical cameos, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. “Franky” Roosevelt and the fated ocean liner RMS Lusitania.

—Joel C. Rosenberg