Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Clive Cussler, a best-selling author and adventurer who led underwater expeditions to find sunken ships, has died at age 88.
Cussler died at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Monday, a spokeswoman for his publisher Penguin Random House confirmed. The cause of death was not announced.
Cussler was best known for writing a number of adventure novels starring hero Dirk Pitt, a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones.
Dirk Pitt, who works for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, would often save the world from terrorists and enjoyed the company of beautiful women.
The writer penned 85 books such as Cyclops, Inca Gold, Raise the Titanic! and Sahara. He sold over 100 million copies with his books reaching the New York Times' best-seller list more than 20 times.
Cussler founded the real-life National Underwater and Marine Agency or NUMA in 1979 as a private nonprofit group that discovered and preserved shipwrecked artifacts.
NUMA discovered in 1983 Cornelius Vanderbilt's steamship Lexington which caught fire and sank beneath the waters of Long Island Sound in 1840.
The author and organization also found in 1984 the U-20 German submarine that sank the liner Lusitania in World War I and the Leopoldville troopship that sank with more than 800 soldiers onboard off of France in 1944.
Cussler wrote about his real-world adventures in a number of nonfiction books. His last book, Journey of the Pharaohs: A Novel From the NUMA Files, co-written by Graham Brown, will be released in March.
Cussler is survived by his second wife Janet, son Dirk, daughters Teri and Dayna, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
