Review by Booklist Review
After looking to the future in 2034: A Novel of the Next World War (2021), coauthored with Eliot Ackerman, Stavridis' latest is the coming-of-age story of a Key West native who rises in the navy during WWII. Scott Bradley James works on his father's boat, at one point encountering Hemingway, and starts at Annapolis in the late 1930s. Scott's outsider perspective of the hazing at the school is fascinating, as are his friendships with a fellow outsider, Sean Kelley, and Joe Taussig, from a lauded naval family. With war on the horizon, Scott graduates early and is posted to Hawaii just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Scott pushes to be on the front lines, and the descriptions of warfare at Midway and other Pacific theaters are exhilarating. Scott's career ambitions often make him quite callous, and his girlfriends, first Caroline and then Kai, jump in and out of the narrative when it suits Scott to be near them. At his best when detailing the organized chaos of war at sea, Stavridis is a gifted dramatizer of naval warfare.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Retired Navy admiral Stravridis (co-author of 2034 and 2054 with Elliot Ackerman) delivers a satisfying novel about a Naval officer during WWII. Raised in the Florida Keys, Scott Bradley James is taught sailing lore by his fisherman father, whose boat, Bella, is docked right alongside Ernest Hemingway's Pilar. Scott goes on to attend the Naval Academy, where he makes his mark as a boxer. After graduating from the academy in 1941, Ensign Bradley is assigned to the battleship USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor. There, he begins a relationship with a beautiful half-Hawaiian college student, Kai Wallace. With his ship incapacitated during the Japanese attack on December 7th, Scott is next assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the destroyer USS Fletcher, playing a vital role in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, the Battle of Midway, and the disaster at Tassafaronga. He gains experience as a surface warfare officer, even as his obsession with promotion and medals might cost him Kai's love. The author immerses the reader in the world of the Navy and cannily mixes fictional characters with real ones such as Admiral "Bull" Halsey and Commander Wade McClusky. This well-told tale is worthy of The Caine Mutiny and In Harm's Way. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)
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