Edge of Valor

Naval Institute Press 9781612515199 Hardcover & eBook 344 Pages 344 Pages Fiction July 2014

While we don't normally review works of fiction, this book looked interesting so did peruse it. The book is set in the summer of 1945 on a  US Navy destroyer in the Pacific which suffered a Kamikaze hit with the CO, XO and Squadron Commander in recurring roles. The CO, after getting his ship back to port, is transferred to special duty.

The CO, Todd Ingram, becomes intimately involved in early Cold War intrigues, a time overshadowed at the time by the rush to demobilize. Being the fifth in a series of novels, the characters are fairly well developed by this point.

Taking over a series at book five in a series is usually either a sign the author is popular and commands fees the publisher cannot meet or the previous books have not been good sellers. Indeed this was the case with the late Tom Clancy, whose first novel, Hunt for Red October, was shepherded through the production process by editor Fred Rainbow of Naval Institute Press. The book was a great success which had the deleterious effect of pricing the author on to a larger publishing house. However in the case of this book, we'll leave judgement on this to the reader.

The only complaint I had with the book was the page layout. Reading fiction is supposed to an enjoyable experience and the text was too bunched together with a small font, which would make the book an uncomfortable read for older readers.