Million-selling novelist Clive Cussler has died. Alexis Welby, spokeswoman for Cussler's publisher, says he died Monday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 88.

The cause was not immediately clear.

The Illinois-born Cussler was an adventure writer and real-life thrill seeker who wove personal details and spectacular fantasies into his page-turning novels about underwater explorer Dirk Pitt. Cussler's plots ranged from the bold to the incredible.

Cussler dispatched Pitt and pal Al Giordino on worldwide missions highlighted by shipwrecks, treachery, espionage and beautiful women, in popular works including "Cyclops," “Night Probe!” and his commercial breakthrough, “Raise the Titanic!”