Cussler Hustlers

Better late than never, right? Our 100th Episode Spectacular kicks off by being a full day late, mostly because we didn't want to take attention away from America's 250th Birthday. They need all the help they can get right now. Kinda like Sexy Doctor Shannon and The Evil Miller Doppelganger! Dirk Pitt pulls a Mel Gibson on some South American mercenaries. Al blames Dirk for a shark attack....

Book Twelve! Episode One! The book I kinda had in mind when we started this whole dang podcast. The book I re-read half a dozen times. The book that seemed the absolute pinnacle of action and adventure for me. Will it hold up on a modern re-read? So far... kinda! Our heroine is a voluptuous blonde professor with impulse control problems! Al operates the transporter for the away team! Dirk gets suc...

CAUTION: This episode contains 0% of your Daily Dirk Allowance. In spite of that, Nancy and Topper sit down ostensibly to talk about remote obscure islands, but the story of so many of them was intensely repetitive (Europeans showed up and fucked its shit). So, we start talking cars, and how much we hate them. There are some bright spots, though! Fan mail and LGBTQIA2S+ ahoy! A BETTER podcast just...

Short episode this week, due to illness and horrible schedules. However, this is a good time talk to YOU... the PEOPLE. Or, the opposite? We want to HEAR from you! 100th Episode Mailbag questions are now open, so feel free to ask us anything or tell us anything! There's also a couple specific things we'd like to know, so... just hit play and listen, ok? It's not even three minutes long...

Hi, howareya? It's Sahara: The Podcast Episode Of The Film Of The Movie Of The Book! Nancy and Topper have a lot of confused, delighted, ambivalent opinions about this hundred-million-dollar epic adventure. On the one hand, they managed to compress nearly every single plot point from a very large book into a movie... but somehow leaving out Abraham Lincoln is a step too far. On the other hand,...

It's over! We're done! We made it! All seventeen plots come to a satisfying fruition. Dirk Pitt uses his Boyscout skills to roast men alive. Giordino pulls a Jesse James. Eva Rojas becomes bored of golf. Massarde acquires a taste for doctors. Kazim doesn't know how to drive a stick shift. Abraham Lincoln's ears survive the Reconstruction. Another case of boys will be boys. Join us...

 Just when he gets out, they pull him back in... to the Sahara! The top United Nations black ops kill team escorts Pitt and Giordino back to Tebezza, with sexy results. St Julien Perlmutter busts into the story like the Kool-Aid Man. Eva Rojas hopes you won't think she's wanton. Our heroes become forklift certified. Melika dies with dignity. Kitty Mannock finished her stroll. Twitter: ⁠htt...

"Unfortunately, this part is really well-written". Do you like dehydration? Starvation? Exhaustion? Pastoral lithography? Then have we got an episode for YOU. Nancy shares some fun facts about mass suicide events. Topper is an assault to aerodynamics. Giordino throws in the towel. Sandecker says to never tell him the odds. Melika is going to get reprimanded at the office. Pitt finds the...

Dirk and Al bravely escape their captors... and are then almost immediately recaptured when they break into the high-security inescapable fortress of villainy. Honestly, they should have seen this coming. Sandecker convinces the President using only facts and logic. Massarde is reminded that billions of dollars won't actually protect you from a bullet. Our heroes take in an unexpected donkey s...

Dirk Pitt finally runs into something he truly didn't expect and cannot handle: a villain who knows more than he does! Hala Kamil's rebound dooms the planet. Al Giordino takes one on the crotch. Sandecker has to make Sophie's Choice for dumbasses. Eva and Hopper discover the only thing worse than North African warlords... white capitalists. On the plus side, we discover a fuel-efficien...

BREAKING! A once-in-a-century weather event happened again, making recording this week logistically impossible. So, to tide everyone over, here is the REMIXED AND REMASTERED Season 1 of Cussler Hustlers, The Mediterranean Caper in its entirety! Well, not COMPLETELY in its entirety... the biggest digressions, wanderings, meanderings, off-topic diatribes and pet noises have been removed. But the sou...

At last, the Promise of the Premise had arrived! Major characters arrive in the desert, but unfortunately they miss out on all the searing hot cannibal-on-cannibal action. Our nominal heroes successfully complete A Science, and are immediately ensnared by the unfortunately competent military forces of a corrupt West African warlord. Pitt takes his ball and goes home. Giordino tries to add a blonde...

Our saga continues with... meetings! Dinner dates! Evil conferences! Sweaty detente! Political palaver! It's... it's... ok, it's kind of a lot of exposition, but we paused right before West Africa explodes into nightmarish violence absolutely not instigated by a couple of white men who don't know how to ask politely. Dirk refuses the call to action. Giordino gets black pilled. Eva...

IT BEGINS! Sahara, the long-awaited start to the Modern Pitt Era. Not one, not two, but THREE prologues set the stage for a mystery that seems... well, not that mysterious, to be honest. They basically tell us directly who the bad guy is, and what the evil plot is, but there's so many unanswered questions floating around and it's clear Clive is having a blast. Marvel at the competent story...

A much delayed Pitt Stop this week! Nancy was originally going to host a How It's Made about adhesives, but she got pulled down a new hyperfixation during her research, so MOST of this week's episode is about Diseases That Present As Madness! Get ready to get bummed out about rare diseases, and HOPEFULLY excited for all the great advancements being made in the medical world! In an episode...

This week we take a distracted detour through the land of parallel fiction and meet Cussler Hustler's iconic new action hero! Fitzroy Scott is the scion of a billionaire tech magnate, he's the sexy man all the ladies want... and he works at the post office! When a random parcel from 200 years ago sets off his radiation detector, Fitzy is pulled into a world of tropical intrigue, deadly oli...

Although we start the episode discussing how best to shave your hog, this REALLY IS the explosive climax of our tenth Dirk Pitt Adventure! Just like how there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball, there's no rules against Peace Crimes, and that conceit gets stretched to its absolute limit. Multiple nukes are detonated, and the only lasting fallout is some early retirement wi...

Grab your Soup Helmets, everyone, and buckle in for some high-flying, robot-zapping, Toshie-squeezing high-octane excitement! Bombs go off, but nothing gets damaged. Dirk dogfights the Japanese military, but no-one gets hurt. And finally, the villainous villains at the heart of our story drop the hammer and NUKE AMERICA... destroying one farmer and his horse. Honestly, it's probably a good thi...

The caper has been foiled, people! Everyone has been captured, all of America's plans were for naught, and now Dirk is going to be hunted for sport. But first... Welcome To The Great Kaiten Bake-Off! Your hosts, Topper and Nancy, are here to be your guides through the unnecessarily detailed world of Japanese haute cuisine and supervillain monologues. Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHu...

We've finally got a caper, people! High-tech hijinks! The US government decides to send the COMPETENT spies into Ajima Island and Project Kaiten (after some... questionable plastic surgery), and our plucky heroes Al and Dirk are press-ganged into being a distraction, something they're uniquely qualified for. Artificial intelligence proves that it's a sound investment. Toshie proves tha...

And suddenly... a FAX arrives! Terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad fates await most of the secondary characters in this episode, which I feel is a nice way to cull the chaff and keep Dirk focused! In the middle of it, though, Dirk has to fly to West Germany and relieve a former Nazi tank-driving farmer of his accidental Nazi loot. And maybe a fighter jet. And a painting. Really, it all seems a li...

Dirk and Al start recruiting their Avengers Super Team. The Pitt family tree expands to include one of the men who helped create the atomic bomb. What's better, sushi or sausage pizza? Who's the real sidepiece, Dirk or Loren? How many classic cars does it take to make every woman on the planet horny? And perhaps most importantly, the final essential piece of the Cussler Formula has finally...

Longer episode time! Dirk finally allows himself to feel emotion, then decides to make it his whole personality. A woman dares to have a secret, and must be punished accordingly. Japanese far-right ultra-nationalists decide to try American-style diplomacy. Clive predicts the Department of Homeland Security, except in his utopia they're understaffed and underfunded. Also, check out Nancy on Dor...

Short episode this week, folks! Nancy caught the plague, and following the plot of a Cussler novel was too physically and mentally taxing (we've all been there, right?) Dirk Pitt goes for a leisurely Sunday drive at the bottom of the ocean. Giordino rages at the heavens and rends his clothes asunder. Flandecker eats a cigar. The full might of the US Government manages to figure out which count...

It's Hot Dirk Summer as we dive into a new book! We dive into the extreme action with not one, but TWO different atomic weapons (though to be fair, only one of them goes off). Submarine disasters? You bet! Secret underwater lairs? And how! Prolonged digressions into the quantum existence of the female protagonist's breasts? I mean, it wouldn't be a Cussler book without it! Dirk faces d...