MWSA Book Review

Torpedo – A Surface Warfare Thriller

Author:  Jeff Edwards

Publisher:  iUniverse

Reviewer: Bill McDonald – President of the MWSA

I have never been as turned on by an action book of any kind, as I was with “Torpedo” by Jeff Edwards. This is a real page burner that will grab you by the throat as you go from one situation to another with the naval crews portrayed in the novel. This book takes us into today’s world of terrorists. It leaves you feeling that all of this could possibly actually happen today, or tomorrow, in some part of the world.

This is the best naval action novel that I have ever read and is perhaps, the best book of its genre of the last decade! This book screams out for a movie version. Some day we may see this book’s story portrayed on the movie screens of the world. It is that kind of action story.

This book deals with illegal arms deals, biological attacks on an embassy in Washington D.C. and an enemy within our own NATO family of nations. We are given a look at naval warfare tactics in action by an author who seems to be an expert at educating us, the readers, as we are completely drawn into the story line. It is a must read!

2005 Admiral Nimitz Award for Outstanding Naval Fiction!

Reviewer: Joe Fabel – MWSA Review Board

This novel must be ranked among the most inclusive naval weaponry explanatory reads.  Page after page, the reader is exposed to understandable terminology, employed in the daily tasking of warships preparing for battle.  The author invites the reader to be the fly on "the bulkhead," a favorable position to hear and observe the intricate issuing of orders, as well as their application to the situations at hand.

Often, if not most of the time during an engagement, directions and responses must be instantaneous if success is to be achieved.  The alternative is not acceptable!  Only constant training coupled with critical review provide the crews with the opportunity to fight again tomorrow.

Jeff Edwards, a retired Naval Chief and Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist, possesses extensive personal and professional background and experience to validate the book's contents.  He lived the life, consumed with the desire to learn and apply the duties assigned to him, duties which made him responsible for the lives aboard his ship.

As a reader, I felt the adrenaline rush among the officers and crew as they faced repeated challenges in performing their demanding assignments.  Often individual officers, men and women, were required to bend to the impossible, when computers or systems went "off line."  Fortunately, their thorough training coupled with innate intellectual skills brought solutions to the repeated problems constantly thrown at them.  All this during actual battle conditions!

I would rank Jeff Edwards' novel, "Torpedo," as a most effective recruitment tool, although that was not its original intent.  The ships, the equipment and, most of all, the crew, men and women, performed commendably.  Any patriotic individual would wish to work side by side with them.

Reviewer: Bonnie Toews – MWSA Member

A Compelling, Authentic, Nerve-wrenching Thriller!

This is sea warfare at its most daring and prophetic best. Every scene sizzles and excites. Just as buddies in battle bond, so does the reader to every character, and no less to the whip-smart yet strangely patriotic villain pitted against the gambling U.S. president. My bungie test of a superb novel is if the author can hold my attention throughout the first read without my being aware of the writing techniques used. Jeff Edwards propelled me through the pages at supersonic speed, so I resented the stop-dead lurches back into the real world four times with chapter insertions of excerpts from an unpublished manuscript on the "Torpedo: The History and Evolution of a Killing Machine." These belonged under Author Notes at the end of the book. Then I would have been ready and fascinated with such a backgrounder, but not while I was so engaged in the story. Fiction is about entertainment. Education is only a by-product of a good tale that gets the facts straight. Mid-novel, readers don't expect to have lessons shoved in their face. Nevertheless, the story was so riveting that I have decided to forgive this first-time novelist for his over-enthusiastic treatment of the main subject. Instead, his editor needs to be hung upside down by his/her toenails for allowing the intrusions. Here is a techno-military thriller writer, who never overwhelms the reader with the technology of his subject, but rather spreads it like maple syrup over thick, mouth-melting pancakes. William Morrow, Berkley publishers--pay attention!!! This should be a best-selling winner on your shelves. I am giving TORPEDO the five-star rating it so obviously deserves.

Reviewer: Rob Ballister – MWSA Review Board

As great a military thriller as I've ever read!

Jeff Edwards couples his years of military experience with a gift for storytelling and spins a magnificent tale that any techno- or military-thriller fan will enjoy. He does a truly wonderful job of making the reader feel that he is right there on the bridge or in the wardroom during difficult decisions, and as far as the action, it never stops! I also really enjoyed how he weaves a bit of educational material on torpedo development throughout the book, educating as well as entertaining the reader. This one goes on my shelf next to Tom Clancy and Dale Brown. Jeff Edwards earned it.

Reviewer: Gayle Lynds – MWSA Member & New York Times bestselling author of The Last Spymaster

A top-flight military thriller!

Awash with excitement, Torpedo by Jeff Edwards is the sort of debut novel that holds one's attention from first word to last. The characters are rich and complex. The plot is not only full of surprises but also is delivered with an unerring eye for detail. The dialog crackles, and the prose is often lyrical.

In military thrillers, too often characters get lost amid a book's ballistic pace. Not true here. You'll savor the growth and changes that occur in officers and enlisted men and women as they face increasingly difficult challenges. With the sure scalpel of a surgeon, Edwards plumbs the depths of our shared humanness, revealing subtleties of the soul.

International thrillers need exotic locales, clashing cultures, and global events that threaten to spin the world out of control. Edwards delivers all with a thrilling authority that's backed up by his years as a specialist in the U.S. Navy. From the first chapter assault by a "sledgehammer" --- a Navy code word for a motorboat armed with an over-the-shoulder missile launcher --- to the climax's titanic naval battle, Torpedo is a masterful work.

Reviewer: Andrew Lubin - MWSA Member/Midwest Book Reviews

A taut, fast-paced narrative brimming with edge-of-seat excitement

Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist Jeff Edwards presents Torpedo, a military thriller about the escalating consequences of an accident at a German nuclear plant and a biological warfare attack on the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., combined with an illegal arms deal between a trusted NATO ally and a rogue Middle Eastern state. The threat of all-out war between America, Europe, and the Middle East casts a spectral shadow; Commander Samuel (Jim) Bowie and the crew of the USS Towers, plus a handful of navy destroyers, must work fast to end the crisis before all hell breaks loose. Their enemy is a NATO ally trained in U.S. warfare tactics, with the potential to out-gun, out-maneuver, and out-think them. A taut, fast-paced narrative brimming with edge-of-seat excitement.