Danger's Hour

Great read. I read it in a weekend. Would love to see a movie made of it.

This is no ordinary submarine novel. There are no secret weapons; no stereotypical, one-dimensional superheroes; no barely plausible, geo-political backdrop. This is a story of the courage and ingenuity displayed by ordinary American sailors who, through no fault of their own, have been plunged into a highly perilous situation: their submarine, the USS Tulsa, has sunk and can not return to the surface. There are limited stores to refresh the air in the submarine and few of the essential systems operate on the limited supply of electricity that's available in the main battery. To make matters worse a number of the crew were injured in the accident that caused the sinking and the way their colleagues look after them, using only rudimentary medical skills, is told all too vividly. It's hard to believe that the situation would be as dire as the author describes, but his attention to detail and obvious technical knowledge gives the plot a frightening credibility.If the story was confined to relating how this group of submariners passed their time, it would not be much of a read. Thankfully, using flashbacks, the author develops the main characters and breaks up the underwater scenario with the story of the international rescue effort. Again, James Francis clearly knows how this would happen and relates it authoritatively. He injects tension by besetting the effort with frustrating delays caused by the weather and human error. The reader spends the last six chapters switching from hope to despair and back wondering if the crew will be rescued before they succumb to the increasingly life-threatening situation in the submarine. True to life, the sinking of the submarine triggers a media frenzy. The unfortunate relatives and friends of the crew, who are powerless to influence the outcome, are drawn to their TV screens and fed a diet of speculation and few real facts.If this book has a failing, it is that the ending leaves a number of issues unresolved. Then again, life's like that. Despite this, I found it a gripping read and am left with a sense of admiration for the tremendous guts shown the crew of the Tulsa and the tenacity of those who try to rescue them. It's apparently James Francis' first novel. I can't wait for the sequel.

I just read all the reviews of this hard to put down submarine novel which was technically far more accurate than any recent fiction involving the Navy.There were no ensigns as executive officers of submarines or VADM who had once been CINCLANTFLT-an O-10 full admiral billet.This writer knows his Navy.He also knows his medicine and then I looked on the book back cover and saw that the author who can write quite well was a senior submarine medical officer in the Royal Navy.I hope this book goes places in the way Mark Bowen's book did although where Mark Bowen admitted he didn't know a Tank from a M-113 personnel carrier, Mr.Francis is the expert already and a very good writer to boot.I agree with one reviewer that the ending came abruptly and I hope this is because the author plans some kind of sequel.it is nice to finally have a good writer who is clearly writing about a subject that he knows so well he could and may well have written the book on it.I hope the Naval Institute reviews this book and maybe does an interview with the author so that we will have the rescue equipment we need.We may still need submarines for operations in the future even with the War on terroism.I think it could be made into a great movie after a few more years beyond the Kursk .This book was sort of like having Mush Morton write a fictional account of submarine warfare against the Japanese in WW2.

This was a fairly good book. The glossary in the back (why do they always put it in the back of the book when I start at the front?) was helpful. The characters were well drawn out as far as the crew of the USS Tulsa, and the other characters, including the female characters (disregard the editorial reviews) were well done.The action moves along very well. In fact, I found myself tempted to glance ahead a couple of dozen times to see how the characters would get out of certain situations.There is no "formulaic" plot to this book. You don't get it telegraphed pages ahead what is going to happen. And with the recent sinking of the RFS Kursk, the book is even more timely.Now, as to why only 4 stars: I felt that the end was a tad abrupt. Not to say that it doesn't finish the story as it is laid out, but there are some issues that could have been dealt with, but weren't. This may be a bid for a sequel, but I somehow doubt it. I would have liked to know, for example, the outcome of the several boards of inquiry that were talked about throughout the book.But on the whole, I can reccommend this without reservation. It is a definate go out and buy it book.