Clive Cussler's The Heist

[KEV67]

I have started another Clive Cussler thriller, this one written by Jack du Brul. I was intrigued because it had a WW1 fighter aircraft attacking a ship. To me it looked like an Airco DH2 pusher biplane. However this is not consistent with the blurb on the back, which said it was set in 1914, and that the plane was attacking President Woodrow Wilson's yacht. The DH2 did not appear until 1916. TBF, in the book it is just described as a pusher aircraft, with no mention of a machine gun fitted. I think the front cover is misleading. It even has red, white and blue stripes on the rudder like a Royal Flying Corps aircraft.

So far so good. It is quite exciting and I want to continue reading. Isaac Bell, the young agency detective, managed to shoot down the plane, and now he has just escaped the port authorities before the police had chance to detain him.

I learnt something new: the Model T Ford was so called, because it was Henry Ford's 20th prototype. His investors held faith in him for that long.

Another thing that interested me was that on the yacht, Woodrow Wilson had invited bankers from around the USA to head up the American reserve bank. They had not had anything like the Bank of England before then. 

Edited September 24, 2025 by KEV67

[KEV67]

That was jolly good, and it did not take me as long to read as Villette. I learnt the odd nugget. I didn't know capital punishment in the USA varied by state. I should have done, because it varies by state now. Curiously, capital punishment seems not to have been legal in 19th Century Russia, where you would think they were more brutal. Getting back to the book, it would probably make a good film, which I might even go and watch. It would be better than most films I see at the cinema.