I don't have the slightest clue where my brain goes at times, this is probably why I have to read some books more than once. I've been talking to a couple of Empress of Ireland divers and decided to scan back through Kevin F. McMurray's book Dark Descent. The Preface opening quote goes like this..

"The Empress of Ireland," Pitt said quietly. It's the ship the world forgot. A tomb of a thousand souls. God only knows what we'll find when we get inside her."
- Cilve Cussler, Night Probe


Ok so I missed this kudo to Cussler BUT the preface also contains 2 full pages of Kevin talking about Clive and a photo of Clive.

It's worth checking out!

Thank you for the hot tip. th: I definitely plan to ckeck out the book! w:

Interesting. What little I know about the Empress of Ireland comes from NP!, so I might see if I can track down a copy of that. <_<

Nice find, Julie!

Is there anything in those 2 pages that's different than the usual write-ups about Clive?

I think this is the blurb that Clive gave the book ;

"The most comprehensive and impressive account of the investigation of a shipwreck I've ever read."

--Clive Cussler, bestselling author of Night Probe!

Yes actually, they are different, let me see if I can post the whole 2 pages about Kevin's meeting with Clive.


Shoot, I was hoping Amazon would let me look inside the book, but no such luck but here is a little til I can type more....


My understanding would begin by learning its place in history and why it held such fascination for so many. That is why I found myself listening to a master storyteller and Empress expert, author Clive Cussler, as he gave me his take on the Canadian ocean liner some thirty years after my first dive on her.

Cussler was a tough interview to land. In 2002, after several phone calls, I finally cajoled him into a meeting. Two years earlier, he had written some kind words about my first book, Deep Decent, which chronicled diving the wreck of the Andrea Doria, but is was our shared passion for shipwreck research that finally won him over.

I flew out to Arizona to visit him at his winter home, a fitting place for a best-selling author. I found him in the courtyard of his expansive adobe house, painting his front door. He was dressed in a polo shirt and khakis and welcomed me as if I were a neighbor dropping by. Tall and lanky and sporting a rakish goatee, the sevety-three-year-old author shuffled through the living room with me in tow. He opened a glass door to the Spanish colonial veranda and ushered me back out into the Arizona sun. A lavish, custom-designed pool lay outside the door of his library, which served as his writing space.



I want to thank my hubby (who can type 100 words a minute) for that. There are 2 more pages to type that we'll get to later.

Dark Descent Clive talk continued.....

Cussler's two-story library would make any researcher, writer, or mariner envious. The walls hold oil paintings of famous ships, and ship models crowd the tables. All of them represent conquests of sorts for Cussler.

His two books on searches for lost shiipwrecks, The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II, written with coauthor Craig Dirgo, have sold millions of copies. But it is his Dirk Pitt adventure novels such as Raise the Titanic!, Inca Gold, Sahara, and Deep Six that have financed his true passion: solving the great mysteries of ship that disappeared. Cussler himself was a deep wreck hunter who discovered several lost ships.

I found it curious that Cussler kept only two artifacts recovered from sunken ships whose stories he had used as plots or had investigated for his nonfiction books. Both momentos were from the Empress of Ireland.

Cussler's philosophy about treasure hunting on shipwrecks is clear: his goal has never been lifting artifacts from famous shipwrecks for his own aggrandizement. Integrating the ship's history into his novels and solving the mysteries of lost vessels gave satisfaction enough. The famous ghost ship Mary Celeste, the tragic Lexington, the historic CSS Hunley, and the torpedoed Carpathia were proof of that. Yet here were a soup plate and a champagne bottle from an obscure Canadian ocean liner, treasured gifts from Canadian diver Mark Reynolds.

He proudly lifted the items from a bookshelf so I could examine them. After nearly a century on the bottom of a river, the bottle was unevenly worn by the constant buffeting of water and sand. The soup plate's glaze was cracked and discolored by the salt water and mud that had entombed it. But both felt smooth in my hands and spoke of a long time past.

Cussler had never dived the wreck or visited the remote shores of the Quebec Maritimes. Still, the vessel had inspired him; hence his reverence toward the artifacts he now cradled. They were a tangible connection to the wreck, the links he needed to connect the story of her demise. These trickets must have made the wreck, and therefore the story, more real to him.

Before putting the story together for his novel Night Probe! he had briefly considered using the torpedoed ship Lusitania as his plot vehicle, but that wreck was simply too famous, and the story would have seemed contrived. Cussler cast about for another shipwreck that could carry the book and decided on the Empress of Ireland. It was a ship he said, "that no one has ever heard of but that none the less was a compelling story."

A compelling story indeed. Understanding its place in history became a quest that drove me across more than three decades. Cussler, as both a shipwreck authority and a best selling author, confirmed for me the mystery, tragedy, and intrigue of the Empress of Ireland.


Preface: Dark Descent by Kevin F. McMurray

Thanks Julie and David for posting that excerpt from Dark Decent. th:

Thanks for that Julie :)

And thank you David for typing it up for us...you really are a gold star :lol:

What an interesting read! Thanks for putting this up for us! t:

Great read! Thanks for posting that snippet for us.

The only reference to the Lusitania that I can think of in the DP books was one where a visitor dropped by the aircraft hangar and DP was wearing a "Raise the Lusitania" T-shirt. :)