The Wrecker (Cussler novel)

The Wrecker is a novel coauthored by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott.

Isaac Bell is back in this sequel to Clive Cussler's The Chase.

Most of the story takes place in 1907 in the United States of America. Osgood Hennessy, owner of the Southern Pacific Railway, has hired the Van Dorn Detective Agency to help catch a murdering saboteur nicknamed "The Wrecker," who has wrecked Southern Pacific trains through a route in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon using TNT, dynamite, and other explosives. He hires accomplices of hobos from the down and out to attack the railroad in any way, including blowing trestles, ripping up rail and ties, cutting power lines and communication systems, and collapsing tunnels on workers, leaving them to suffocate or be crushed. It is discovered that after "The Wrecker" is done with his men, he brutally murders each one himself. "The Wrecker" traverses the vast spaces of the American West as if he had wings, striking wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life.

Joseph Van Dorn appoints Isaac Bell, a well-known detective from a prosperous Boston banking family, as Chief Investigator, to help catch the saboteur and cold-blooded murderer.