2019 #AtoZChallenge – My Literary BFF Isaac Bell

MY LITERARY BFF

ISAAC BELL

Throughout the month of April, you can catch up on my posts for this year’s challenge as well as all my alphabet offerings from previous years on my Blogging from A to Z page HERE.

When I read a great novel or a series of novels, sometimes I wish I could step into the book and join the world experienced by the characters. I just know that if I were there, I’d feel at home and contribute positively to the plot. I think it is those characters that keep me returning to works by the same author and even read those same novels over and over again.  For this year’s challenge, I plan to visit those characters we all know and love.  Those characters that we want to step off the page because we know that if they did, we’d be best friends forever.  Today, please meet Isaac Bell.

Clive Cussler Isaac Bell Adventure Series

For my daily commute to work, I enjoy many audiobooks.  I find them very entertaining.  Recently I’ve had the pleasue of enjoying my commute with a series of novels by Clive Cussler about a detective.  Isaac Bell is the main character in the series. The lean, blonde-haired man is the chief investigator (for most of the novels and chapters) for the VanDorn Detective agency, based loosely on the US Pinkertons. The Van Dorn detective agency is headed up by Joseph (Joe) VanDorn, an Irishman most recently from Chicago.  Though his work takes him all over the country by train or the world by ship, Isaac Bell’s headquarters is n NYC in the Knickerbocker Hotel.

Knickerbocker Hotel. Image obtained from the facebook page of Isaac Bell (a page by Clive Cussler)

Isaac Bell is the son of Ebenezer Bell and grandson of Isaiah Bell, two fictional prominent Boston bankers. He gets married to then filmmaker Marion Morgan in The Thief. Bell had met and become romantically involved with Ms. Morgan in the very first novel in the series, The Chase.  The Bell novels are usually set in the early twentieth century, and involve many of the technologies slightly ahead of the time the novels are set in, including telegraph, early flying machines and cars, dreadnought battleships, trains, radio, and early submarines.  Isaac was just ten minutes late (in the timeline of the novels) to apprehend a fleeing Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

Although the storylines are exciting from start to finish, it is the history in these novels that peaks my interest.  Everything you ever wanted to know about early twentieth century trains, weapons, crime, automobiles, filmmaking, communication and good old fashioned detective work, this series of novels is for you.

Isaac Bell Adventure Series in publishing order

• The Chase (2007)
• The Wrecker (2009)
• The Spy (2010)
• The Race (2011)
• The Thief (2012)
• The Striker (2013)
• The Bootlegger (2014)
• The Assassin (2015)
• The Gangster (2016)
• The Cutthroat (2017)

Isaac Bell Adventure Series in chronological order

1. [1902] The Striker (Sites say this is first in story development)
2. [1905] The Assassin
3. [1906] The Chase
4. [1906] The Gangster
5. [1907] The Wrecker
6. [1908] The Spy
7. [1910] The Race
8. [1910] The Thief
9. [1911] The Cutthroat
10. [1921] The Bootlegger