Strike From the Deep by Bob Branco

 ★★★¾

GENRE: Thriller
SUBJECT: modern day piracy
Setting: Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden
CHARACTERS:
DATE READ: September 1 - September 11
NO. OF PAGES: 297
Off the Shelf (pre-2013)? Source?:   yes, ARC from author

PLOT:....................................................................3.50
CHARACTERIZATION:.......................................3.00
TOPICS: ...............................................................4.00
STYLE:..................................................................3.00
ORIGINALITY:.......................................................4.50
ADDICTIVENESS:..............................................4.00
OWNERSHIP:......................................................3.00
Threshold Quality.................................................3.75
Average..............................................................................................3.72

An international naval task force takes on  Somalian pirates that have been capturing  merchant ships carrying oil and natural gas and holding them for ransom.  But now a new twist is inserted and the conflict gets more dangerous. The action is jolting grabbing the reader until the very end.

I loved the story but the beginning was a little too detailed causing the narrative to seem slow, but once the story gets moving, it grabs you until the end!

Southern storm : Sherman's march to the sea by Noah Andre Trudeau

Read: April 16 - April 23

Format: E-book 703 pages

Source: Public library

Subject: historical accounts

Challenges: 11 in 11, 75 Book, SYLL,

Category: The Engagement: this is getting serious

Genre: History

Stars: ★½

William Tecumseh Sherman, a general in the Union Army, was best remembered for the long trek that his army made through Georgia in late 1864 from Atlanta to Savannah, pillaging and burning everything in their path and that is what I expected to read about in this book, however, that is not the story that was told here.

This book repeatedly told how from Atlanta to Savannah this regiment ripped up railroad tracks and that regiment foraged for food getting sweet potatoes and pigs here and sweet potatoes and chickens there, and how this regiment led the way on Wednesday and another on Friday and tiny little scrimmages erupted along this river and that river, and let us not forget that the telegraph lines were ripped down from this town and then from that town and so it went.

In 700 pages I learned hardly anything new about the "March to the Sea" than what I knew when I started because the author was constantly quoting this soldier and that soldier from this state and that state about how hungry they were and how tired. It amazes me that I actually finished this book but I kept getting just a teensy bit of information which dragged me through. Under no circumstances would I recommend this book unless someone was trying to figure out if a particular regiment was involved in the March to the Sea, otherwise, forget it.