Clive Cussler is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. His life nearly parallels that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers have discovered more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona and Colorado.

Grant Blackwood is the author of the Briggs Tanner series, as well as the coauthor of #1 New York Times bestseller Dead or Alive, with Tom Clancy, and The Kill Switch, with James Rollins. A U.S. Navy veteran, he spent three years on active duty aboard the guided missile frigate USS Ford as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer. He caught the fiction-writing bug at the age of eighteen while reading Clive Cussler’s The Mediterranean Caper.