The Honored Dead (The Honor Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Four stars, down from five in the early series. Peter Wake started out as an ernest young naval officer trying to blockade rebels on the western Florida coast during the civil war. Now six books later after fighting African slavers, advising the French building the Panama Canal and chasing evil doers through the Caribbean, he has morphed into an intelligence officer with high connections to the US President, the Pope and such. We learn some history of southeast Asia in the 1880's but Peter seems mostly along for the ride, somewhat incidental to the story. I wish the talented Mr. Macomber would return to his Florida roots and explore the history of post Civil War Florida with different characters if need be (though I guess Sean, his son, who we know to be destined for the admiralty will soon appear). The appearance of the Yard Dogs in the last chapter is an "in" joke but must seem strange to those not in the know.

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The award-winning Honor series continues with this fast-paced thriller as, amidst exotic beauty and palace intrigue in 1883 French Indochina, U.S. naval intelligence officer Peter Wake is thrust into international events.

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The Blighted Cliffs: Book One of the Reluctant Adventures of Lieutenant Martin Jerrold Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book because it promised to be a naval analog of George McDonald Fraser's FLASHMAN. It was not but I was not disappointed.
The books takes place on the Kentish coast during the Napoleonic wars. Lieutenant Martin Jerrold has been sent there in disgrace. While he was at the battle of Trafalgar, he took no active part. He managed to get himself stuck in the hold of his ship and lost out on any chance of notice or distinction. So it is that he is sent to work with a revenue cutter and help suppress the thriving smuggling trade. He is only there for a single night, drunk, before he manages to get into trouble. While stepping out to relieve himself, he wanders into a smuggling operation gone wrong. A man is killed and the Lieutenant becomes the prime suspect. He finds himself in a situation where he must not only carry out his duties to suppress the smuggling trade, he must use all of his free time to try and clear his name before the deadline runs out. His bad reputation, bad luck and French intrigue do not help matters.
The protagonist of the book is not cut from heroic cloth but he is not the complete poltroon that the Harry Flashman character is; he does not seek trouble for its own sake. Instead, he is a bumbler who has bad luck. When the chips are down, though, he does possess a modicum of honor. He is not a character we like to revile. Instead, he is one with whom it is all too easy to identify.
This book is not as funny or exciting as the FLASHMAN series but neither is it as strained and contrived. It is a good read and I look forward to reading more.


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An Affair of Honor (Honor Series) (The Honor Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)An excellent book in an excellent series. The purchase process, timely delivery, and condition of the book was also rather ironically an affair of honor. Very Pleased!

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At the beginning of this fifth novel in Robert N. Macomber's award-winning Honor Series, it's December 1873 and Lieutenant Peter Wake is the executive officer of the USS Omaha on dreary patrol in the West Indies. Lonely for his family, he is looking forward to returning home to Pensacola in a few months and rekindling his troubled marriage with Linda.But fate has other plans for Wake. He runs afoul of the Royal Navy in Antigua and a beautiful French woman enters his life in Martinique. Then he's suddenly sent off on staff assignment to Europe, where he is soon immersed in the cynical swirl of Old World politics. Wake finds himself running for his life after getting embroiled in a Spanish civil war. Then he gets caught up in diplomatic intrigue among the French, Germans, and British. But his real test comes when he and his old friend Sean Rork are sent on a no-win mission in northern Africa. Not the least of his troubles is Madame Catherine Faber de Champlain, wife of a French diplomat. Her many charms involve Peter Wake in an affair of honor.

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H. M. S. Surprise (Vol. Book 3) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) Review

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(More customer reviews)In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary. Still, I'm glad to add my words. These stories concern Jack Aubrey, a ship captain in the English Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and his great friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan doctor and spy who in the first book joins Jack's crew as ship doctor.
As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.
Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.
The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.
Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."
I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.

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A Different Kind of Honor (The Honor Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)The last half of the 19th century seemed to me to be a very weak period for a history of the US Navy. Leave out John Paul Jones, the Barbary pirates and the Confederate Navy advances and I thought the US Navy slumbered for most of the 19th century. HOWEVER, Macomber has managed very well to bring the US Navy to the world stage. The series has advanced quite spritely with "A Different Kind of Honor" being the best of the series so far. Remembering the fights between the diesel admirals and the nuclear admirals, I can well identify with the fight of the sail admirals and the Congressional penury versus the diesel admirals for a modern navy. I look forward to the next in the series.

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Those Who Dare: Book One in the Raiding Forces Series (Second World War Fiction) Review

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(More customer reviews)Those Who Dare is a good war story. Something blows up on the first page and the action is more or less constant throughout. The characters are the kind of people you would like to go to war with. You get a rare look at the evolution of pin-prick raiding and how No.1 British Parachute School and the Commando Special Warfare Training Center in Achnacarry, Scotland trained Combined Operations troops, which is something I've never seen in fiction before. I'm ex-SF, Ranger, Jumpmaster and have been there and done that, got the scars to prove it. I recommend this book.

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The first in a series of meticulously researched World War II novels about hit-and-run raids against Hitler's war machine by British forces - under the command of a U.S. soldier - "Those Who Dare" is sure to appeal to avid military fiction fans. By May 1940, panzer divisions had decimated Belgium and reached Calais. Lieutenant John Randal of the U.S. 26th Cavalry Regiment volunteers his expertise to help slow their advance. What unfolds is a blend of military guerrilla tactics, suspense, humour, cultural and social commentary, and war buddy camaraderie - plus a little romance between the American GI and the widowed Lady Jane Seaborn. Along the way readers meet such colourful characters as Captain David Niven in MO-9 and Captain 'Geronimo Joe' McKoy with his Travelling Wild West Show and Shooting Emporium. The author - a decorated combat veteran - covers the details of war extensively, from the five points of contact of a parachute landing fall to descriptions of a British raider's A-5 flinging ferries before the first 12-gauge shell casing hits the floor. As the novel ends, Major Randal's men, fresh from Operation Tomcat in France, learn they will deploy via sea transport within 48 hours on their next mission. The second book, which is already written, tells that tale.

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The Devil Himself: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)You get to know and care about historical, infamous characters who until this book, were enigmas. Jonah Eastman has a daunting but rewarding task of uncovering a little known but powerful operation that impacted WWII on American soil. You see notorious mobsters a little more as human beings instead of cold blooded mobsters and what they would be willing to do for the people and issues they held dear. On a bigger scale, you see political and military leaders do what they need to do in a time of crisis to protect their jobs and their country. It is like being invited to an elite club to be privy to their conversations. I couldn't book this book down!

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Private Life Review

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(More customer reviews)In "Private Life," Jane Smiley has presented readers with another beautifully crafted novel. The tone of the book is reminiscent of Sinclair Lewis' works; its texture and atmosphere are solidly middle-American. "Private Life" is the story of a marriage and the resulting disillusionment experienced when the wife sees her husband for what he really is. What she thought was a private life is, in reality, a life of quiet desperation in which she has subordinated herself to the myopic vision her husband espouses. The author draws back the curtain on everyday characters' lives to reveal deeper truths about those individuals and, as a result, the reader may be prodded into reexamining his/her own life choices.
Both the prologue and epilogue are set in 1942, but the majority of the novel's action occurs during the period between 1883 and that date. In order to appreciate the plot, one must keep in mind the status of women during those years. Margaret Mayfield, the daughter of a doctor who committed suicide, is his oldest surviving child; her two sisters are more beautiful and considered more marriageable than she. Margaret is a bookish, but not brilliant; personable, but lacking a dynamic personality. Lavinia Mayfield, Margaret's mother, daughter of John Gentry a Missouri farmer, is ever mindful of the advantages of a "good marriage." Dr. Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early, a Navy Captain and PhD, and Montgomery County's (MO) most famous son fits the bill. Margaret, conforming to the dictates of societal norms, accepts his marriage proposal. Following their marriage, the two move to Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California where Captain Early is in charge of a small observatory.
Without giving too much detail and spoiling "Private Life" for the reader, suffice it to say Andrew Early proves to be a spoiled, pompous, know-it-all who expects Margaret's unquestioning support. His private life involved professional and personal secrets which, had Margaret known of them, would have affected her decision to marry. Margaret's private life is not so much private as a life of quiet desperation; she has no focus other than her husband and his theories of the universe. She questions whether his world view is somehow an argument against education - whether he might have been happier with smaller thoughts. During a time when Margaret begins purchasing prints from a Japanese artist, she sees depicted in one of the pictures that there is a moment just before the recipient of the gift realizes the evil intentions of the sender. This highlights Margaret's awakening and her realization that Andrew is not all he seemed to be; she has been drawn into his world and is expected to orbit around him. Through letters Margaret discovers in Andrew's office, she learns that what she thought was a private life has been orchestrated by others who know more about Andrew than she does. At one point, Margaret's friend Dora tells her that thinking of Margaret always made her give thanks for soundness and stability; that somewhere in the world things were going on as they always do. Margaret replies that Dora talks like a woman who never married.
"Private Life" is an emotionally charged, sometimes disturbing portrait of a woman trapped by society's expectations and her own acquiescence to her husband's demands. Her life is subsumed into his. These complex characters are finely drawn; each is distinct and adds to the overall theme and the plot of the novel. Each individual plays an important role in Margaret's subordinating herself to her husband or in her awakening to the truth of her life and of her marriage. I was unable to put the book down once I started it and recommend you read this when life's demands will allow you to do so in one sitting. Jane Smiley has written another American classic; it is intelligent, engrossing, and speaks volumes about the danger of a life so private that it is no life at all.

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Sterling Point Books: John Paul Jones: The Pirate Patriot Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an interesting biography of John Paul Jones of American Revolution fame. It retains excitement for the young reader and provides good information on the subject. John Paul Jones was Scottish and was considered a traitor of his homeland for backing the American Revolution. In England was accused of being a pirate and not considered to be anything else. He was a great hero of the US but died in France unknown and in an unmarked grave. What happened inbetween is very interesting.

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Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) Review

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KOREA STRAIT is the tenth in a series that follows the naval career of Dan Lenson. He began his missions in THE MED (first published twenty years ago) as a young lieutenant. These days thirty-nine-year-old Commander Lenson wears a Congressional Medal of Honor decoration but his high-profile history is a hot potato for his commanding officer. When Dan refuses to retire early, he's assigned to what should be a routine and inglorious shipboard tour in the Orient. He's to command a TAG (Tactical Analysis Group) gathering information during joint war game exercises with South Korea, Japan and Australia in the Korea Strait. Of course, Dan's timing is impeccable and while he's afloat on the South Korean flagship, Chung Nam, the games tracking friendly targets are interrupted by a genuine attack by a squad of subs. The TAG commander is a "rider" with no command authority on the Chung Nam. But he and his team, determined to stand by an ally, disobey orders to evacuate (crossdeck) along with the rest of the American presence. Faced with typhoon seas and an unidentified enemy; Lenson aids Commodore Jung and the ship's company in such diverse ways as, among other things, calculating threat probabilities on his laptop and working with a belowdeck repair and rescue detail. The battle rages... and then the true destructive power of the enemy's weapons is discovered. Now, Dan must convince his superiors to approve a daring proposal in hopes of preventing mutual destruction in the strait!
This thriller is highly engrossing in many respects besides the tautly-told main plot of battle against foe and sea. For instance, it convincingly portrays the tensions and strains that an American naval officer could experience aboard a foreign nation's ship. A few of the South Korean officers speak passable English, and they teach Dan a few phrases of Korean, but the language barrier isolates Dan and seriously impairs the allies' abilities to work together. Chung Nam's captain despises Lenson's sometimes ugly-Americanness, and the commodore's aloof leadership challenges Dan. Basically, Dan can't help feeling like a fish out of water in a navy so alien. Even his digestive system is thrown wildly out of whack by the food and the stress, leaving Dan in less than fighting trim during combat.
But here is one nit to be picked: the narrative's formulaic inserts occasionally break the surface. We learn one of Lenson's team has a penchant for underage Korean girls, and sure enough, he gets himself arrested. That plot is ripped from past headlines about American military men and Asian host countries' women. And what do you think happens to another man, whose command decision on his own ship cost some sailors their lives? Does he get a chance to redeem himself? KOREA STRAIT can and does lean into the predictable.
On the whole, though, Poyer delivers a suspenseful and, unfortunately, plausible scenario. The real world Koreas, China, Japan, and America all have great stakes in that ongoing political and military brinksmanship. One of these days KOREA STRAIT might not be fiction anymore. KOREA STRAIT is an expert tale of the modern Navy, authored by a real pro. (nearly 4.5 stars)

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Aircraft Carriers at War: A Personal Retrospective of Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet Confrontation Review

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(More customer reviews)Admiral Holloway's story begins with a destroyer torpedo attack on a battleship during the Battle of Suriago Strait in WW II. At the time Holloway was a lieutenant assigned as the gunnery and torpedo officer in the destroyer USS Bennion. There is a rule of thumb in the Navy that a destroyer making a torpedo attack on a battleship in a sea battle has a life expectancy of less than five minutes before being sunk. You can imagine the feelings of the crew aboard Bennion realizing as they turned in to attack that many of them probably had less than five minutes to live.
Less than a week after that battle Lieutenant Holloway departed for flight training. His parting comments to the commanding officer were "In the past 48 hours we have silenced two shore batteries, shot down three Zeros, battled a Japanese cruiser, sunk a destroyer by gunfire, and torpedoed a Japanese battleship. I think I'm ready to try something new."
The book goes on to describe Holloway's experience in flight training and eventual assignment as operations officer of a carrier air task group where he flew as a pilot with Fighter Squadron 111 in combat in Korea. Later in the war he served as executive officer and then commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 52. His descriptions of flying in that war are as detailed, readable and understandable as any air combat stories I have ever read. The intensity of the naval air campaign in Korea is little understood or appreciated. An example is that one of the squadrons in his task group, VF-653, lost 12 of its 26 pilots during his 1951-52 tour.
Aircraft Carriers at War could well have been titled A History of the US Navy in our Time. Admiral Holloway next describes many of the naval operations during the cold war where his assignments included command of Attack Squadron 83 whose mission was delivery of nuclear weapons. The operations of such squadrons are described in easily understood terms.
The most significant operational descriptions in the book are included in Holloway's command tour of the nuclear powered attack aircraft carrier Enterprise during the Vietnam War. We seldom read descriptions of carrier operations by carrier commanders and this book has the best description of carrier warfare I have ever read. The command responsibilities and day to day operations of a carrier captain are clearly described and explained.
The remainder of the book is the most important historically as Holloway describes his operational experiences as an admiral in command of various fleet components and his Washington assignments leading to his selection as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). The description of his tour as CNO gives seldom revealed insights into the inner workings of the Department of Defense and the relationship of the service commanders with the president and congress.
Aircraft Carriers at War is a historical review of naval operations in our time including three hot wars, the cold war and numerous international incidents written by a participant rather than an observer. Admiral Holloway is generally considered the most knowledgeable and dedicated proponent of aircraft carriers in our time and this book clearly reflects his knowledge and experience.
You may have noted this is not an entirely unbiased review. I confess that I commanded an attack aircraft squadron and an attack aircraft carrier at the same time as Admiral Holloway and we sometimes operated together.


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Honor Bound Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a history major from Florida's oldest college(Rollins), and everytime I read one of Mr. Macomber's books, I learn something about Florida and the West Indies, and other remarkable and exotic locales.
This newest effort has more plot twists than the Pentagon has angles - and a remakable amount of historical information that Macomber interweaves into his books.
I recommend it in the strongest possible terms to fans of historical novels - especially ones that deal with the oceans.
You will enjoy this book even more than the others Mr. Macomber has penned. I think he is a national treasure.


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It's June, 1888, and Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S. naval intelligence agent, is in Florida culminating an espionage mission to learn Spain's naval readiness in Cuba. A woman from his past shows up, begging him to find her missing son, and Wake sets off across Florida, through the Bahamian islands, and deep into the dank jungles of Haiti. His band includes a Smithsonian ethnologist, a Bahamian Seminole sailor, Russian spies, and a Polish-Haitian soldier. Overcoming storms, mutiny, and shipwreck, Wake discovers the hidden lair of an anarchist group planning to wreak havoc around the world—unless he stops it.

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The Tide of War: A Nathan Peake Novel (The Nathan Peake Novels) Review

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(More customer reviews)Tide of War is the second book in a trilogy dealing with the naval career of Nathan Peake, a British naval officer during the napoleonic wars. Early in this novel, Peake is promoted to Post-Captain, and is ordered to the West Indies where he is to take command of HMS Unicorn, a vessel whose previous Captain has been killed in an apparent mutiny, and his body found washed ashore at the inlet to Lake Pontchartrain with a slit throat.
Although it is the second in a trilogy, this work can be read as a stand-alone novel. I had not read the first novel in the trilogy, but found that I had no trouble following the storyline as the first few chapters do a good job of filling in the background of Peake's career.
Overall, this is an action packed novel of napoleonic era naval fiction in the fine tradition of C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian that should appeal to most fans of the genre. While the character of Nathan Peake is not as well drawn as Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey, the plot of the novel satisfies with rousing battle scenes both at sea and in the swamps and bayous around New Orleans.

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Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel (The Matty Graves Novels) Review

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(More customer reviews)Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel
by Broos Campbell
McBooks Press, Inc.
2008
I will preface this review by stating that this is the first of the Matty Graves novels I have read, even though it is the third book of the series. Luckily, knowledge of the other books was not necessary in order to follow this novel.
The novel starts unpromisingly with a wordy opening chapter full of descriptors more apt to appear in a romance novel than in a light naval adventure. For example, "He had the dark, deep, liquidy sort of eyes that lady novelists call "brooding", a mass of jet curls that cascaded down his forehead, full moist lips, and a pudgy but sturdy cleft chin."(p. 6).
Between this and the repeated focus on the Paw Paw trees, I would not have been surprised if Matty Graves and the French Lieutenant described above started declaring their undying love for each other.
Luckily, the writing style changed a little in the next chapter and the plot actually started. It turned out to be a decent, if not exciting, light naval adventure.
The end was a little predictable, in that I could see where it was going, and was correct in my surmises. I was also disappointed in the lack of empathy and feelings I had invested in the characters. Besides Matty, the other characters really were not built on and therefore did not seem relevant.
I give it a firm three stars, out of five. Why? 1. It was an enjoyable read, but nothing special. 2. It did not inspire me to read the previous novels. and 3. If I had been looking at this book at a bookstore or library, I would have put it back after reading the first chapter.

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The Time of Terror: A Novel (The Nathan Peake Novels) Review

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(More customer reviews)Blood, gore, and a little more blood for good measure - that's how I once heard the Terror of the French Revolution described. This book is no disappointment for one looking for an interesting nautical adventure intermixed with the horrors of the French Revolution.
Nathaniel Peake (or should I say Turner, which is the alias he uses during most of the story) is an intriguing sea captain who opts to accept a special assignment that lands him right in the midst of Revolutionary France.
Hunter takes liberties with some of the characters, but that's what good historical fiction is all about - take someone real and make them even more sinister or more lovable. I enjoyed how he played up Robspierre, and his treatment of Thomas Paine was utterly fascinating.
The love story was a bit too much for me - I think the book probably would have been better had Hunter focused on the swashbuckling adventures and hijinks of Peake instead. Having said that, the little bit of romance that was present made for an underlying current that added a bit, and probably set the tone for another book in the series.
Can't say that I loved it, but it's worth reading. The fact that the author is British, as is the hero, makes the book intriguing and fun.

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Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China Review

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(More customer reviews)This book, by the late Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley, is a very interesting and at times humorous account of the life of U.S. Navy gunboat sailors on China's Yangtze River from the time of the American Civil War through the mid-20th Century. During that period, China went through a tremendous amount of upheaval that included revolution, civil wars, major wars with Japan, and smaller wars with western countries. In the midst of China's upheaval, small American gunboats and those of other foreign nations tried to protect the lives and commercial interests of their citizens living in China.
Kemp Tolley, who passed away in 2000 at age 92, was himself a young Naval Officer in the 1930s when he was assigned to the Yangtze River Patrol. From that vantage point his tales of U.S. Navy life on the Yangtze--both on duty and off duty--in the 1930s make for some interesting anecdotes, whether they deal with U.S. sailors battling the river and Chinese bandits, romancing White Russian and Chinese women, or brawling with British and Italian gunboat crews in the bars of Yangtze River towns.
"Yangtze Patrol" is a great true adventure story and captures some of the same spirit as the novel, "The Sand Pebbles," which dealt with one U.S. gunboat crew during the Chinese Nationalist Revolution in the mid-1920s. However, any American reader of "Yangtze Patrol" needs to keep in mind how most Chinese viewed the Patrol. That view is well summed up in "The Sand Pebbles" where an American missionary asks Jake Holman, a gunboat sailor, how he'd feel if, instead of American gunboats on the Yangtze, there were Chinese gunboats sailing up and down the Mississippi River.

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Foreword by Victor H. Krulak.The U.S. Navy's patrol of the Yangtze River began in 1854 when the USS Susquehanna was sent to China to safeguard increasing American commerce in the region. As Kemp Tolley explains in this entertaining history of the patrol in which he was to later serve, the presence of gunboats along the river greatly benefited the integrity of the shoreline factories. Tolley was a young naval officer in the 1930s when assigned gunboat duty, first in the Mindanao, then in the Tutuila, and finally the Wake in August 1941. His colorful description of life as a "river rat" is filled with anecdotes about the resourceful and high-spirited sailors who manned the old riverboats in that distant land.In the process of telling their story he covers a century of Chinese history, replete with warlords and mandarins, bandits and kidnappers, missionaries and mercenaries, riots and revolution. He presents a knowledgeable summary of the political situation in China up to World War II, including the bombing of the Panay, the siege of Shanghai, and the Nanking incident. Far more than a routine account of naval operations on the great Yangtze, this book is an unforgettable reading experience that has attracted readers since 1971 when it was first published in hardcover.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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The Darkest Shade of Honor: A Novel of Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S.N. (The Honor Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have read and enjoyed all of Bob Macomber's "Honor" series. This was one of his best. It was interesting and action filled. It was great to find Peter Wake back in Southwest Florida. The different incidents and coastal areas where the story takes places made it especially enjoyable. Learning about Florida history along with some of the roots of Cuban independence, and meeting a young Theodore Roosevelt made it all the more fascinating.

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