The Last Paladin
A Novel
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2023 W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction: A gripping tale of anti-submarine warfare in the World War II Pacific Theater, by a master of military adventure fiction.
The Last Paladin by P.T. Deutermann is based on the true story of the USS Holland (DE-24), a World War II Atlantic Fleet destroyer escort which has spent the past two years in the unforgiving battle for survival against the German U-boats of the North Atlantic.
Summoned to relieve destroyers that are bogged down by escort duty in the escalating Pacific Theater, the Holland is met with a rather cold reception. In the eyes of Pacific Fleet sailors, North Atlantic convoy duty pales in comparison to the bloody, carrier-sinking battles of Savo Island and Guadalcanal. However, Atlantic Fleet ships have had to specialize in one thing: anti-submarine warfare.
The Holland is sent off into remote South Pacific operating areas with orders to find and destroy Japanese submarines—but with little expectation of success. Her commanders take the mission literally; using radio intercepts that are being ignored at higher levels, they determine that the Japanese have set up a 1000-mile-long picket line of six submarines, an entire squadron's worth, to act as a moveable barrier against the expected American advance into the next set of islands. These submarines are poised to sink every American aircraft carrier and destroyer and to change the course of the war.
What happens next is one of the legendary stories of the US Navy. The Last Paladin is high stakes naval warfare at its best, told with utter authenticity and a former ship captain's understanding of dramatic, intense combat. P. T. Deutermann continues his acclaimed series of WWII thrillers in this unforgettable novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's the summer of 1944 in this capable naval thriller from Deutermann (Trial by Fire), and Lt. Cmdr. Mariano deTomasi, captain of the destroyer escort USS Holland, has arrived in the Solomon Islands to assist the Pacific theater war effort. Previously stationed in the North Atlantic hunting German U-boats, the small ship is considered an afterthought to "the Big Blue Fleet" that will take the fight north to the Japanese home islands. The Holland is assigned to patrol an area of the empty ocean based on rumors of a line of Japanese submarines intent on ravaging the approaching U.S. armada. After aircraft spot a Japanese sub, the Hollandbegins a tense search and destroy mission for a pack of submarines, which may strike readers as unlikely, but as with all Deutermann's novels, it has a strong historical basis. Though the voices of deTomasi and his executive officer, Lt. Ephraim Edmond Enright, who shares narrative duties with the captain, sound much alike, Deutermann ably conveys naval battle tactics, day-to-day life aboard a vessel, and the pandemonium of warfare. This is smaller in scale than the author's usual fare, but no less potent.
