Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394193 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Released on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Following The Keeper's Son, this is the second in Hickam's superb series about the WWII adventures of U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Josh Thurlow and his daffy crew of coastal North Carolina misfits. In 1943, Josh and his men are fighting the Japanese around the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Josh, tough as a boiled owl, likes to carry an Aleut ax and drink Mount Gay rum. Still, when he's assigned a curious secret mission, he's not sure he's up for it. A Marine lieutenant, David Armistead, a cousin of President Roosevelt and Josh's friend, has deserted, and Josh is ordered to find him and bring him back for court-martial, or kill him. Josh teams up with another disgraced officer, U.S. Navy Lt. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who is awaiting his own court-martial for losing his boat, PT-109. Josh and JFK are an interesting pair--the one a rough cob, the other a Harvard blueblood--and together they get themselves into loads of trouble with Japanese soldiers, gangs of cannibals, a beautiful native girl who chops off heads and a nutty cargo cult leader. Add fierce, bloody battles and steamy tropical island romance, as well as hilarious cameos by Richard Nixon as an enterprising supply officer and James Michener as a navy historian, and the result is a funny, tightly wrapped tale of wartime action.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In The Keeper's Son (2003), Hickam introduced a character he intends to make recurrent, Coast Guard Lt. Josh Thurlow, who, in that first novel, worked to keep merchant ships off the North Carolina coast safe from German U-boats during World War II. Now, in the second installment of the series, we find Lt. Thurlow stationed in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, placed there by the secretary of the navy himself, to inspect navy operations as the forces of imperial Japan are to be at least kept in check and hopefully put into retreat. A certain crisis develops, however, when a lieutenant apparently deserts, and the lieutenant happens to be an ambassador's son. To help with his pursuit of the missing officer, Thurlow enlists the aid of a PT-boat commander, John F. Kennedy. Now we are off and running on a very exciting high-seas, wartime adventure tale, which combines the color, humanity, and humor of the play and movie South Pacific and the TV series Black Sheep Squadron. Characters, including JFK, are created with sympathy and nuance, and Hickam demonstrates a great understanding of both the remoteness and the strategic importance of this corner of the world. The first novel in the series was popular, as this one will prove to be. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

PLEASE keep writing, Homer Hickam!
I can easily say that Homer Hickam is my favorite author. I was hooked when I read The Rocket Boys (October Sky) and Sky of Stone. Every book Mr. Hickam has written has been just as good as or better than the previous book, which is VERY high praise. Hickam manages to spin creative tales with interesting characters and interesting plot lines, time after time.

Some authors, after a little success, begin to get predictable, or they begin to lose their creative edge. Not so with Homer Hickam! In my opinion, there are two authors that consistently produce outstanding works - the great John Grisham and Homer Hickam. I can only hope that Mr. Hickam's career as an author turns out to include as many books as John Grisham has produced.

This is a wonderful, epic tale of World War II life, and, even for younger readers like myself, born two decades after World War II, we can almost feel like we knew what it was like to be there. I mean no disrespect to the honorable World War II veterans (and all other veterans) out there - I truly appreciate your service and I thank you for all that you did.

For a good, entertaining read, RUN OUT AND BUY THE AMBASSADOR'S SON! You WILL NOT be disappointed!

A great epic novel
Just finished Hickam's last Thurlow epic. I was enthralled throughout. Great characters, though far tougher and more nuanced than in the Keeper's Son. Once a reader is immersed in Hickam's Thurlow world, it is as if you have stepped into a vivid, non-stop place. This is not a standard World War II novel. There is something very different about the Thurlow stories. For one thing, there is woven in the text a spirit unlike anything I've ever read. Penelope and Joe Gimmee and Dave the megapode are all more spirits than real it seemed to me. There are matters of the heart and soul that peek out through the story that are perhaps disappointing to anyone who just wants to read a war story. Hickam's Thurlow novels are going for something else and this one has cranked up everything a notch. I quite often laughed out loud at the very comic style of some scenes and then the next page I was immersed in a terrible battle that was so real, it seemed like I was a part of. Maybe Hickam, who is a combat veteran of Vietnam, is bringing out the insanity of war. He's a writer to watch, this one, but not one to read if all you want is the ordinary.

A prize winner!
Homer Hickam's books are a gift to an avid reader. The ambassadors son is a well structured book. This is an adventure story that moves along at a rapid pace, but doesn't drown the reader in too many small details. That is a trick for an author writing a fiction book about historical events. You have to add details, but not enough that you lose the story for the reader. Hickam is one of the best at doing this. To read this book, it helps to Read Hickams other book "The keepers son". I really think this book deserves a literary prize. Definitely worth the money!