Customer Reviews

The Neptune Strategy

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From the first page, Jack Gobbell draws you into the drama and excitement of the battle for the Pacific during WW II. You feel the heat, smell the cordite, sense the fear and bravery. As a fellow novelist, I am awed by Gobbell's skill at story telling and character development. He will have you on the edge of your seat as Todd Ingram struggles for survival against Shimada, the Japanese master submariner, and Taubman, the greedy Nazi. A must read!

Webster defines intrepid as "characterized by resolute fearlessness, fortitude and endurance." Roget offers courage, bravery, valor, spirit, daring, gallantry, derring-do, audacity, dash, defiance and self-reliance as synonyms.

Spring 1944 finds our intrepid hero Navy Commander Todd Ingram on the bridge of his Fletcher class destroyer, the U.S.S. Maxwell, on picket duty ahead of the Mariana Islands invasion fleet. Caught by eight Japanese attack bombers, Todd gets blasted into the sea and shortly thereafter rescued by a Japanese submarine. Our favorite Navy storyteller, John J. Gobbell, tells this continuation of Todd's saga in The Neptune Strategy.

The Japanese submarine that picks Todd up is reported sunk in a torpedo bomber attack. Although battered, the boat survives and continues what turns out to be a rogue mission as a ghost ship. Todd is treated as slave labor, and guarded night and day. The language and cultural differences make it worse. He has some contact with a German officer traveling with the Japanese, but otherwise is starved, beaten, tortured and worked to the point of death.

The rogue sub heads west through the Indian Ocean, stopping in Madagascar en route to the Nazi submarine pens in France to return the Nazi officer to Europe. Todd is transferred to another submarine headed back to the South Pacific, but not before he sees a huge stash of gold ingots hidden under the submarine's diesels.

Back in Southern California, a very pregnant nurse, Todd's wife, Army Captain Helen Ingram thinks Todd has been lost at sea. The Navy knows that he was rescued, but cannot reveal that they are reading Japanese codes, and so she cannot be told he is still alive.

Even in 1944, it was a small world, and it looks like the parties are all headed for New Caledonia in the south Coral Sea. The Neptune Strategy will take you there to see what happens.

John J. Gobbell's "The Neptune Strategy" is another great read that follows three previous books featuring war hero Todd Ingram. The action and suspense never stops. And the historical setting, in this case the Normandy landings and the Battle of the Philippine Sea, gives the reader a great history lesson. Compared to the previous books, "The Neptune Strategy" contains more international intrigue. I would not have thought that Gobbell would have ventured to Europe, but he does with a gold-hungry Nazi submariner who finds his way from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And Ingram is along for the ride! I hope that Gobbell has enough ideas for a final installment for the war's finale. In all, a really fun book to read!

I know very little about World War II, which makes now this second book that I have read by Mr. Gobbell ... so great for me. Because I can tell so much in his writing is true or based on fact. It is amazing to me that he is able to portray so many sides to his story but he does and it is all believable.

I especially like his characters. As in my first book of his, he gets the female characters especially good .. they believable for me .. and the settings of the past are wonderful, even down to the clothing and the vehicles and the places.

I am afraid that my vocabulary about submarines and the navy does not allow me to express how exciting this book is at times but I could definitely feel the pressure of water and the fear of being captured and the fear of just being in a submarine.

I am going on now to read some more of his books because I am hooked. A Call to Colors was my first and it was fantastic.

As with any of John Gobbell's novels, you are made to feel empathy for his characters, belief in the story and amazement at the plot's twists and turns. As a former naval officer who served at sea on the "small boys", he brings to his books a wealth of knowledge of the real US Navy of the period in which the book is set. An outstanding read, as usual.

This is a compelling WWII sea story that takes you all over the Pacific and even into post-invasion France. A Japanese submarine on an unusual mission, a very unusual passenger on board that sub, lines of intrigue within the U.S. Navy command structure, and so on and so on. Gobbell has woven a masterpiece of a story that reeks with authenticity and, in parts, almost unbearable suspense. Once or twice he gets a little fanciful with plot twists, but all in all, this is an excellent story which, at the end, leaves you with the satisfaction that you've read a masterpiece of the genre.

Continues an excellent series of ww2 stories following the men and women who served aboard ships. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

John Gobbell has done it again, I have read all his book (the Netune Strategy)is just great, Keep you on the edge of your seat the total book I
hope to we can get more of his books, Great job John.
Art Kelsey , Drummond Island , Mich.

Pretty good WW II tale of Japanese submarines, ciphers, secrecy, disinformation, misunderstandings, personal loyalties strained, a cargo of Yakuza gold, a German renegade. . . quite a potent mix. Taut and fast-moving: will likely encourage you to read some of his other books (I'm going to). . . though not perhaps, as the dust-jacket suggests, "will have you looking up your nearest naval recruiter" - that's a stretch, I think! (Anyway, I served my Navy time already!)