AAAHHH! I READ IT IN THE WRONG ORDER!

 

I love PT Boats, taking an inexplicable geeky joy in them. In fact, I've written about books featuring PT boats a number of times. (HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE) 

I recently scored a copy of the 1968 novel South Pacific Fury, by James Macdonnell, which also recounts the adventures of a PT boat. This short, fast-paced and truly exciting book stars Walt Kenyon, commander of PT 44. A few hair raising encounters with the Japanese (a bombing run by an enemy plane and an encounter with a destroyer) jump starts the story with a bang (actually, a number of bangs). After that, Kenyon is given the mission of picking up a coastwatcher from an enemy-held island. The Japanese have tumbled to the coastwatcher's presence and are hot on his trail. Also, he has important information that he wasn't able to transmit before his radio went on the fritz.

From there, the book switches from chapter-to-chapter between Kenyon's point-of-view and that of the coastwatcher, whose name is Cook. It's a standard but always effective narrative technique, expanding the action beyond the deck of the small boat and giving us a succession of cliffhanger moments.

The action set pieces are first class. The 44 boat runs into enemy activity and has some engine trouble at an inconvenient time. Cook, in the meantime, deals with an infected bayonet wound in his thigh while barely avoiding both the Japanese and a venomous snake.  But even though the PT boat and the coastwatcher haven't yet rendezvoused or even made radio contact with one another, they still manage to work together. At the same time, Kenyon finds himself in a position that might require him to act with mindnumbing recklessness in order to both complete his mission and survive.

I loved this book and it does tell a complete story in of itself. But as I read it, there seemed to be a call back or two to previous adventures. After doing a bit of research, it seems likely that this book is a sequel to a 1967 novel titled Convert. At the very least, that novel is about someone who takes command of a PT boat after being transfered from a larger ship--which is also Kenyon's back story.

So I have, in all likelihood, read this out of order. That means I may receive a stern letter of reprimand from the International Society for Determining the Order in Which to Read Your Books. We all know what that means.

Oh, well. Hopefully, I'll be allowed to maintain my blog from my prison cell. I wonder if Angela will wait for me while I'm in stir.