Name has come up numerous times but I have never gotten a good idea who exactly he is. Didn't find anything here either. Reason I ask was because I did not know he was a real person until the other day. From the dedication in Arctic Drift:


Spoiler (dedication only)





























In Memory of Leigh Hunt

And yes, there really was a Leigh Hunt

A dear friend, bon vivant, wit and madcap
Don Juan who had a way with women
that made him the envy of every man in town

I killed him off in the prologues of ten Dirk Pitt books.
He always wanted to play a bigger role in the stories
but he didn't complain because he enjoyed the fame.

So long, old pal, you are sorely missed.

Well, that confirms it! I was pretty sure he was a real person, but I wasn't sure if that was his real name.

Here's an old Leigh Hunt thread ;

http://z4.invisionfree.com/CLIVE_CUSSLER/i...p?showtopic=177

Also some of Helene's info ;

Leigh Hunt:

Clive Cussler's friend in real life.

Admiral Leigh Hunter receives a communication capsule from Dirk Pitt. There is a message inside written by the captain of the Starbuck, and the hunt for the lost submarine begins. Pacific Vortex! (1)

Leigh Hunt, a reporter for BBC, approaches Hala Kamil for an interview.
Treasure (1)

Leigh Hunt is the chief pilot on the Texas, a Confederate ironclad. The ship is damaged in combat on the James River, escapes to the Atlantic Ocean in a fog bank on April 2, 1865, and is never seen again. Sahara (The Gauntlet)

Based on an old story, Cussler explains that Leigh Hunt is an prospector who claims to have discovered a cave in the Castle Dome Mountains in 1942 that leads down into a cavern filled with gold and riches, with a river travelling through it to the Sea of Cortez. Inca Gold (35)

Colonel Leigh Hunt performs postmortem exams at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and concludes the deaths were caused by exposure to high-intensity sound.
Shock Wave (11)

Leigh Hunt is the captain of the Princes Dou Wan that sinks during a storm on December 10, 1948. Flood Tide (Requiem for a Princess)

Leigh Hunt is the captain of the Madras that is trapped and frozen in ice in the Antarctic in 1779. Atlantis Found (Ghost Ship)

Leigh Hunt is the captain of the Kearsarge that sinks after a collision with a mystery submarine in 1894. The captain and crew manage to abandon the sinking ship. Valhalla Rising (Monster from the Deep)

Sandecker relates the legend of the Wandering Buccaneer. Leigh Hunt is a freebooter and pirate ravaging the West Indies in the late seventh century. A company of British marines swarms his ship, the Scourge. Hunt is tied to a rope and lowered over the side to be eaten by sharks. Like the Flying Dutchman, Leigh Hunt and his crew of pirates still roam the waters. Trojan Odyssey (15)

Oh.. sorry about that. I actually looked in a lot of threads before I created this duplicate. :blink:

...and in Treasure of Khan, Leigh Hunt is an archaeologist working for the British Museum in China when his workers find a box containing clues to the lost tomb of Kublai Khan.

beer:

I don't want to be overly suspicious, but I still think Clive might be fooling us here....


Leaving that aside however, what are we to make of this:

In fact, Hunt(Hunter) was not always limited to the prologues, and in several of the books, he was not killed off at all.

Is this yet another code?

hmmmm ... if Hunt was indeed a real person, he must have died between the completion of "The Chase" and "Arctic Drift".

According to Ancestry.com there was a Leigh R Hunt that died in Los Angeles, California in 2007.

Actually, the above statement could descibe Dirk Pitt himself or even Clive Cussler ;)