Clive Cussler, the million-selling adventure writer and real-life thrill-seeker who wove personal details and spectacular fantasies into his page-turning novels about underwater explorer Dirk Pitt, has died.

Cussler died on Monday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, said Alexis Welby, a spokeswoman for publisher Penguin Random House. He was 88. The cause was not disclosed.

The author dispatched Pitt and pal Al Giordino on exotic missions highlighted by shipwrecks, treachery and espionage, in popular works including Cyclops, Night Probe! and his commercial breakthrough, Raise the Titanic!

Cussler, an Illinois native, was raised in Southern California and lived in Arizona for most of his final years, but he sent Pitt around the globe in plots that ranged from the bold to the incredible. The Treasure features an aspiring Aztec despot who murders an American envoy, the hijacking of a plane carrying the United Nations secretary-general and soldiers from ancient Rome looting the Library of Alexandria. In Iceberg, the presidents of French Guiana and the Dominican Republic are the ones in danger, during a visit to Disneyland. In Sahara, a race across the desert somehow leads to new information about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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It remains our primary source of information on a murderous motive that combined white supremacy, drug-fuelled paranoia, and Beatles conspiracy theories. 10 must-read true crime books Party Monster by James St James (1999) James St James paints an indelible picture of New York nightlife in this infamous tale of drugs, sex, fashion and murder. The 1996 death of a drug dealer named Angel kicked off a scandalous series of events that rocked the city’s party scene. As a club kid himself, the author shows us how he became the confidant of one of the killers, and experienced the dark side of a subculture that embraced total anarchy. Formerly titled Disco Bloodbath, the novel later became a feature film starring Macaulay Culkin. 10 must-read true crime books The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1999) This unusual story focuses more on the ethics of journalism than the violent crimes of its titular murderer, Jeffrey MacDonald. 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They are granted dignity and allowed to have a voice: a lesson in respectfully covering mass shootings that is tragically still needed today. 10 must-read true crime books The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson (2007) Maggie Nelson is known today for genre-defying critical successes like The Argonauts and Bluets, but this 2007 book about her aunt’s murder shows an early foray into true crime. The case had haunted her since childhood, and when new DNA evidence emerged to lay blame 35 years after the tragedy, Nelson observed the new suspect’s trial closely. Through the prism of her family’s grief, the book is beautifully lyrical at times. Her mother’s perspective is particularly crucial, as she mourns her younger sister’s short, turbulent life. 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“Again and again, Dirk Pitt, working for the fictional National Underwater and Marine Agency, must find a sunken vessel and retrieve some artifact,” Mark Schone, summarising Cussler’s novels, wrote in The New York Times in 2004. “Evil forces, be they Commies or Blofeldian madmen, try to stop him. Along the way Pitt saves himself, the world and the damsel of the moment.”

Cussler has a new novel, Journey of the Pharaohs, scheduled for release on 10 March, with several more awaiting posthumous publication.

In real life, Cussler founded his own National Underwater and Marine Agency and participated in dozens of searches for old ships, including one that turned up a steamship belonging to Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Born an only child in 1931 in Aurora, Illinois, and raised in Alhambra, California, Cussler’s name and writing persona have the air of a pseudonym, but he was born with his moniker, named for the British actor Clive Brook. He studied for two years at Pasadena City College before enlisting in the Air Force and serving as a mechanic and flight engineer during the Korean War.

In 1955, he married Barbara Knight, with whom he had three children. Through much of the 1960s, he worked in advertising, as a copywriter and creative director. Among the better known slogans he helped coin — “It’s stronger than dirt,” for an Ajax laundry detergent campaign.

In his free time, he was writing fiction and moonlighting at a skin-diving equipment shop, where his wife suggested he work to help gather material for his novels.

“When creating advertising, I had always looked at the competition and wondered what I could conceive that was totally different,” Cussler said in an interview included in Dirk Pitt Revealed, a nonfiction book released in 1998. “[James] Bond was becoming incredibly popular through the movies, and I knew I couldn’t match Ian Fleming’s style and prose. So I was determined not to write about a detective, secret agent or undercover investigator or deal in murder mysteries. My hero’s adventures would be based on and underwater.”

Cussler finished manuscripts for Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, but had no literary agent: so he created one. He purchased a thousand sheets of blank letter paper, got a friend in advertising to design a logo for “The Charles Winthrop Agency” and sent his first inquiry to Peter Lampack of the William Morris Agency. Lampack agreed to take on Cussler and remained with him long after the author confessed his charade.

“I told him the story of Charlie Winthrop with great trepidation,” Cussler explained to the Arizona Republic. “I sat there waiting for the result, and he sat there blank for a minute, and then he laughed himself under the table.”

Mediterranean Caper came out in 1973, followed by Iceberg two years later and Raise the Titanic! in 1976. He would turn out more than 20 Dirk Pitt novels and expand into children’s books and such adventure series as The Oregon Files and The Numa Files.

The film version of Sahara came out in 2005 and starred Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. An adaptation of Raise the Titanic! — its title the same except for dropping the exclamation point, came out in 1980 and featured Jason Robards and Alec Guinness.

In recent years, Cussler began working with co-authors and collaborated with his son on Poseidon’s Arrow, Crescent Dawn and Arctic Drift. Cussler’s son is Dirk Cussler. Pitt himself had a son, called, of course, Dirk Pitt Jr.

In addition to Dirk Cussler, the author is survived by his second wife, Janet, daughters Teri and Dayna, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.