Submerged
Thomas F. Monteleone
Cemetery Dance Publications
2015; $40.00
Reviewed by Wayne C. Rogers
Don’t be alarmed by the price. This was a signed, limited hardcover that was published by Cemetery Dance Publications this year. The author has some regular trade hardcovers at his Borderlands website that he will personally inscribed for a lesser amount of money than the price of the above, plus the paperback edition is supposed to be out later this year.
I’ve been reading action/adventure novels since the early sixties. In other words, I’ve probably read close to 4,000 novels during the past five decades. The reason I mention this is that Submerged is right at the top of being one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I can think of only a few action/adventure books that excited me as much as this one did: Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean, Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler, Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, and The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum. What a class of titles to be included in!
Submerged is a novel made up of two halves. The first half of the book is divided between a period of time right at the end of World War II and the present day. The second half basically takes place during the present.
Near the end of World War II, German Captain Erich Bruckner is given a secret assignment to take a newly developed submarine Class U-5001 on a trip across the Atlantic to bomb the United States in one last attempt for the Fuhrer to get the upper hand. The submarine has been fashioned so an airplane can take off from it. All the sub has to do is get within range of the East Coast of the USA so the plane can bomb either Washington, D.C. or New York City. But first, Bruckner is ordered to rescue several scientists from an ultra-secret station (Station One Eleven) that has been developing super weapons for the last several years. One of the new weapons includes what could be an atomic bomb. The only way into the station is through an underwater passage beneath the ice shelf of Greenland. What Erich Bruckner is about to experience will never leave his memory in the years to come.
Skip to the present.
Dexter Bucklin, an ex-Navy diver, is taking his class of six-rookie divers to a newly discovered wreck in the deep waters of the Chesapeake Bay. What they discover below is the wreck of the submarine U-5001. During the course of their search, Dex happens upon a sealed metal box, containing the Captain’s journal and papers in pristine condition. Once the ex-Navy diver is able to read the papers, he instinctively knows that something BIG is about to take place. His present life will never be the same once news of the discovery is announced.
The second half of the novel is a mad dash to the remains of Station One Eleven and the secrets that are hidden there, waiting to be found again by either the good guys or the bad. Rest assured that the bad guys will do whatever it takes to get this information and technology. Everyone’s life is expendable in the chase to gain control of what may be the greatest destructive power in the world.
Thomas F. Monteleone has written an action-packed novel that should place him at the top of The New York Times Bestseller List, but hardly anybody knows about the book because of its limited publication. I have to tell you, the reader, that this is the novel every action/adventure fan has been waiting for during the past three decades. Submerged will hook you in the first few pages and take you on a bullet-ride of fun, excitement and pure entertainment, while offering the reader a glimpse into the history books and the things Germany was up to before the United States finally defeated it.
I have to admit the writing is purely brilliant.
Tom Monteleone is an author’s author. He’s a pure wordsmith who is able to describe a scene in such crystal detail that you feel as if you’re there. That is tough to do. This not only makes the novel more vivid, but also more of a actual joy to read. Each time I picked up the novel and began to read a page or two, I found myself transported to a different reality, especially during the World War II submarine scenes. This certainly made me nostalgic for the late seventies when so many of the great action/adventure authors were still alive and at their peak.
Filled with numerous twists and turns that will have the reader guessing, Submerged is a must for the fans of action/adventure. It will have you wondering like I have just how much of this book is true and how much was filtered from the author’s imagination.
I certainly hope Thomas F. Monteleone will continue with another Dex Bucklin novel. He has started something that will have his fans shouting for more. Highly recommended to all lovers of great reading experiences!
