The Wrecker by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

Book Description
In The Chase, Clive Cussler introduced an electrifying new hero, the tall, lean, no-nonsense detective Isaac Bell, who, driven by his sense of justice, travels early-twentieth-century America pursuing thieves and killers . . . and sometimes criminals much worse.

It is 1907, a year of financial panic and labor unrest. Train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad's Cascades express line and, desperate, the railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency. Van Dorn sends in his best man, and Bell quickly discovers that a mysterious saboteur haunts the hobo jungles of the West, a man known as the Wrecker, who recruits accomplices from the down-and-out to attack the railroad, and then kills them afterward. The Wrecker traverses the vast spaces of the American West as if he had wings, striking wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life. Who is he? What does he want? Is he a striker? An anarchist? A revolutionary determined to displace the "privileged few"? A criminal mastermind engineering some as yet unexplained scheme?

Whoever he is, whatever his motives, the Wrecker knows how to create maximum havoc, and Bell senses that he is far from done-that, in fact, the Wrecker is building up to a grand act unlike anything he has committed before. If Bell doesn't stop him in time, more than a railroad could be at risk-it could be the future of the entire country.

Filled with intricate plotting and dazzling set pieces, The Wrecker is one of the most entertaining thrillers in years.

My thoughts
I have enjoyed Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels, but this new series involving Isaac Bell as a detective for the Van Dorn Detective Agency at the turn of last century is a bit of historical brilliance. Together Cussler and co-author Justin Scott takes one back to when the railroad was the major mode of transportation across this vast country of ours in "The Wrecker". And yet, there is someone out there intent on destroying these great railroads. Although, the reader knows who the antagonist is, it takes Bell and his cohorts a while to discover who it is. In the mean time, the reader is entertained with much action and historical details.