Interview: June 22, 2026
When a NATO weapon that could ensure peace or start World War Three vanishes in the Arctic, Kurt Austin and NUMA race to recover it before it falls into enemy hands in Graham Brown’s COLD FIRE, the latest installment in the #1 New York Times bestselling series created by Clive Cussler.
In this interview conducted by former publicity executive Michael Barson, who was Cussler’s primary publicist at G.P. Putnam’s Sons from 1999 to 2015, Brown tells the remarkable story of how he began working with the “grand master of adventure,” reveals his favorite NUMA Files thriller, and names various authors whose work he especially enjoys.
Question: How did it come about that Clive Cussler reached out to you to become a collaborator on one of his bestselling series? And what was your reaction to Clive’s outreach?
Graham Brown: It’s one of my favorite parts of this whole journey. I was at a crossroads in my life and my writing career. I was 40, divorced, and on my third book in the Hawker & Laidlaw series. But it didn’t sound like the publisher wanted a fourth. I also had started dating Sarah (my wife now). I was flat broke, with one book left on my paperback deal and a lot of credit card debts.
I remember praying on a flight back to Phoenix, saying, “Father, I’d like this to work, but I have nothing to offer. If you want me to be of value and not a burden, I need your help to make it possible.”
I got off the flight. I turned on my phone, and there was a message from my editor asking if it would be okay to give Clive’s agent my number. Clive was in Africa at the moment, but he had read one of my books and liked it, and he wondered if I’d like to work on the NUMA Files series with him. I said I’d be VERY interested. Clive’s agent said, “Okay, Clive will give you a call at some point and you two can get together.”
I put the phone down and wandered out onto the balcony in a daze of sorts. I said a prayer of thanks and then just stood there looking at the mountains in the distance.
Finally, I went back inside and picked up my phone. It said “one missed call.” Clive had called from Morocco. He left an amazing message talking about the adventure he was on in Africa but adding that he was looking forward to meeting me. I kept it for years, but at some point it just vanished off the phone. Into the mist, I guess. But not out of my memory.
Q: What was the first of your own novels to be published? And how long did it take you to break into the ranks of published writers?
GB: My first novel was BLACK RAIN. It’s an action story set in the Amazon that revolves around an ancient Mayan curse and a stone that generates power from nowhere while sending a signal that would reach zero on December 21, 2012 --- the supposed Mayan doomsday. I think it is still a fun read, even though there was thankfully no apocalypse. (Maybe the heroes in my book are the reason we’re all still here!)
I started writing the story that became BLACK RAIN with the belief that I would be published and both rich and famous by the end of that year. But obviously I was a little optimistic. Many years later, I finally had an agent and a book deal.
Q: Before you became an author in your own right, who were the writers who exerted the greatest influence on what you wanted to write?
GB: I think you can see it in my writing. The stuff that grabbed me was all thrillers: Clive, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy.
I remember asking Clive if he wanted me to write in his style or mine, and he kind of laughed and said, “Well, they’re pretty similar, so…”
Q: With Clive’s passing in 2020, you became the solo author on the long-running NUMA Files series with Kurt Austin. Did you have to alter your writing process in any way now that Clive is no longer your collaborator?
GB: In some ways it’s different since Clive passed. We all miss him. But I work with Dirk Cussler now, and he has the same kind of instincts and insight that his father did. I do most of the heavy lifting, but when you get stuck or something isn’t quite working the way you want it to be, it’s helpful to have someone like Clive or Dirk who can spot problems and suggest solutions from a body of knowledge and a safe distance. They both seem to be able to get to the heart of the matter in a way that makes me think, Why didn’t I see that?
Q: COLD FIRE is now the 14th novel featuring Kurt Austin and the NUMA team that you’ve written, either solo or in collaboration. Have you ever found one of them to be particularly difficult to write for whatever reason?
GB: ALL of them. They fight you! You have to persevere.
An easier question would be: Which one wasn’t hard? By far, the smoothest writing experience, and one of my favorite novels in the series, was THE STORM. We wrote it in six months. I sent Clive an early partial version of the manuscript, and he sent it back saying, “Don’t change a thing!” It debuted at #1, and I think it stayed on the list for six or seven weeks.
Q: Among your contemporaries, which authors produce work that you particularly enjoy, either within the adventure novel genre or outside of it?
GB: There are so many good authors out there. There’s literally too many books and not enough time. I’m a big fan of everyone who has worked with Clive. I guess that stands to reason. But Boyd Morrison and Jack Du Brul are outstanding.
Beyond our Cussler universe, I read a lot of unusual fiction just to get away from the genre. I loved Haruki Murikami’s HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD. There are parts of it that I still don’t understand, but I kept reading. By the end of the novel, I was just amazed.
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is one of my absolute favorites. Some people can just find a different gear when they write, where even as a seasoned writer you're thinking, How is this guy doing this? Anthony Doerr is one of them.
Some of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones world is brilliant. But if I’m being honest, I only really loved the first book and his Hedge Knight series. It was immersive, with great worldbuilding and brilliant writing.
