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Todd Ingram #4

The Neptune Strategy

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Former naval officer John J. Gobbell brings to life marine warfare as few others ever have. Now, the author of The Last Lieutenant, A Code For Tomorrow, and When Duty Whispers Low, returns to the fiery panorama of World War II, as Commander Todd Ingram is caught in a living hell.
In 1944, the Allies have delivered a stunning blow to Hitler's Western front. In the Pacific, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's Fifth fleet is poised to eviscerate the Japanese Navy--and begin a new war for the occupied islands.

Commander Todd Ingram is on the bridge of his ship, the destroyer USS Maxwell, on radar picket duty on a misty, overcast day when four Japanese Val dive bombers emerge screaming from the overcast. The coordinated attack is sudden and devastating, the ship rocked by massive explosions as the bombers hit their target. The concussions hurtle Ingram overboard and he watches in horror as his embattled ship leaves him behind.

Ingram barely lasts the night, clinging to a floating piece of his ship's lifeboat in rough seas. As he begins to lose hope, a periscope cuts through the water and in moments a submarine surfaces nearby. His joy turns to horror as he spots the numbers I-57 on the conning tower. He is now a prisoner of a Japanese U-boat and his troubles have just begun--but so has the race to save him.

A secret U.S. Naval Signal Intelligence Service station in Australia intercepts a situation report from the Commander of the submarine to his superiors in Tokyo--they have an American prisoner, Alton C. Ingram. A strategy is developed by the U.S. Navy and a classified plan put in motion: ensure that the I-57 escapes a net of ASW HUK groups (anti-submarine hunter killer) laying across the sub's path to Lorient, France and ambush it when it reaches shore. But the I-57 has other plans as it dodges depth charges and Allied ships in a deadly game whose outcome may effect the balance of power in a war that threatens to consume them all...

From the Philippine Sea to the Nazi U-boat pens in Lorient, France, The Neptune Strategy is a complex cat and mouse game between the Japanese submarine I-57 and a U.S. Navy determined to save one of their own and is the most thrilling novel yet by a master of the WWII thriller.

480 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 5, 2004

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About the author

John J. Gobbell

15 books41 followers
FROM USC TO YANKEE STATION.

Upon graduating from the University of Southern California, John was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy. He served as a deck and ASW officer aboard the USS Tingey (DD 539), a revered Fletcher-class destroyer and battle of Leyte Gulf veteran. He did a WESTPAC cruise and fought the battle of YANKEE STATION forming a protective destroyer screen around the carrier USS Hancock (CVA 19) in the South China Sea.

Professional Career

Most of John's career has been in executive recruiting. He was with KPMG Peat Marwick as a consultant for three years. And then for ten years, he was a Vice President Boyden Associates, Inc., a large New York City based international executive recruiting firm. He then founded THE GOBBELL COMPANY in Newport Beach, California where he worked on a retained basis with corporate clients to find senior executives. During a concentrated time of developing and presenting candidates for military aerospace clients, John became fascinated with advanced technology, weapon systems, and the executives who build them. Recently he was the Director of Development for the USC Catholic Center, located at the University of Southern California. There, he worked on a $35.0 million capital campaign to build a new Romanesque church and student center on campus.

In civilian life, John sails in Southern California yacht racing regattas. In younger days he skippered in the Long Beach Yacht Club's Congressional Cup, one of the most prestigious match-racing regattas featuring skippers from around the world, including America's cup stand-outs.

John and his wife, Janine, also a USC graduate, live in Orange County, California.

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5 stars
1,518 (58%)
4 stars
851 (33%)
3 stars
178 (6%)
2 stars
19 (<1%)
1 star
10 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
Profile Image for Urey Patrick.
342 reviews19 followers
November 16, 2020
Having read all six books of the series, I will post this "series review" on all six book sites rather than do a review of each book.

Gobbell nicely mixes fictional characters in among actual events and real historical figures of WWII. It's an enjoyable read, although the author's character development is somewhat shallow and forced... shades of comic book defiance and heroics that just rings hollow if you are conversant with the history and with the actual first hand accounts of veterans who were there and experienced much of what LT Ingram did. Nevertheless, if you have an interest in WWII, the author does an excellent job of mixing in authentic technical and historical data with the flow of action involving his fictional characters - destroyers, aircraft, bombs, naval culture and procedures... all well done and credible. The personal relationships and dialogs are soap opera-worthy and artificial in the settings in which he presents them. Lots of sarcastic retorts and impulsive bravado fitting for a teenaged superhero but not a supposedly mature and experienced commanding officer. I found myself just skimming over those interludes to get past them quickly.

And the author could have used a continuity editor. For example, and not to spoil the series, but in one book Ingram is held captive on a Japanese sub with a Nazi interlocutor, supposedly headed for France... eventually the German rejoins the Kriegsmarine at sea to continue on to Europe. (I'm glossing over a lot of details and action in order not to spoil things for potential readers). He is offered the opportunity to ride U437 to Kiel in a couple weeks - he declines for a much riskier way sooner. Two sentences later the character he is talking to remarks he should have boarded U689 because it would have been safer....

In another example, his Intelligence officer friend Toliver briefly mentions the Redman brothers in reference to their internecine warfare between Op-20-G in Washington and the Rochefort shop in Honolulu (all of which is true). Ingram asks who are they and Toliver puts him off - no time to explain now. They have no further interaction at all, yet on the next page, with Toliver having left, Ingram mentions he knows all about the Redman Brothers.... again, maybe just me but naggingly irritating.

Maybe it is just picky me, but that sort of inconsistency in narrative annoys me... and it is fairly prevalent. However, throughout the combat sequences are excellent, as are the times and events at sea. The fictional story lines centered on Ingram overlaid on the actual events and historical figures of the War are compelling and give the reader a good sense of life in those times. The series is good WWII historical fiction.... better in books 1-4 than 5 & 6... and book 6 is set 30+ years after the war with then Admiral Ingram a relatively minor character to the story line involving his son Lt Ingram. Weakest one of the series.
Profile Image for Bryan.
696 reviews14 followers
July 10, 2022
Exceptional read. Continues this excellent series!
49 reviews
August 15, 2020
This is the fourth installment of six in this riveting World War II naval adventure series about the war in the Pacific. The main character, Todd Ingram, is a believable creation by the author who skillfully weaves in the adventures and misadventures of a veritable host of supporting characters.

The author’s obvious familiarity with naval terms, equipment and formations adds a distinct level of authenticity to his works of fiction. Additionally, he brings an important degree of reality to these books by his meticulous attention to the geographical locations. They give the reader an almost travelogue view of the immense Pacific Theater and the challenges such enormous distances posed for the great leaders of those battles.

I have one major criticism that I direct towards the electronic book publishing industry as a whole rather than to these particular books: I am really, really annoyed and frustrated by the poor editing and/or proof reading found in this publishing methodology. To me, this sloppiness is an insult to the authors and to their readers. Misspellings, incorrect punctuation, truncated or misarranged sentences and electronic bugs detract from the overall reader experience. It is past time for this new form of publishing to be brought up to the standards we have come to expect from conventional hard copy publishing.

Profile Image for Tom Tischler.
904 reviews16 followers
November 8, 2017
Anyone out there who enjoys war stories should enjoy this one. It's from 2004
by John J. Gobbell. A Navy destroyer is under attack by a group of Zero's when it is
badly hit. The Captain is knocked from the bridge into the water and in all of the
excitement he isn't missed. He spends the night in the cold water hanging onto a
piece of driftwood and is spotted by a periscope. A Japanese sub rises to the surface
and the Captain is taken aboard. What follows is his ordeal aboard the sub and
what eventually happens. John Gobbell is an ex Navy Lieutenant and he writes
very realistic stories. I gave it a 4.
11 reviews
April 17, 2022
Read the whole wonderful series

I’m a woman whose father-in-law was captured at Corregidor after scuttling their ship following the fall of Bataan and it’s death March. As a 19 year-old Navy Corpsman (medical, didn’t carry a gun) I’ve heard his stories of the Bilobed Prison, the Hell Ships, and his time in Manchuria—3 & 1/2 years a POW of the Japanese. He never mention the hell of Corregidor. Start there, book 1 of this series. You’ll be hooked. Gobell’s mastery is in taking each section of the Pacific War and weaving the truth of the battles, deaths, and emotional turmoil (when PTSD was unheard of and men had to be John Wayne like the movies they all saw.) And he Carrie’s the same characters through the Ingram series so you have to follow their emotional ride. It is well worth your time, and the author’s knowledge is immense.

Robert Thompson made it home, married, and had 3 children. He was a “Mustang” who worked his way up from a seaman to a full Commander, going to night school all the way to a Masters in Hospital Administration. When he retired from the service he was VP of Southside Community Hospital.
I married his oldest son, Edward, when he was a Lieutenant. That was 50 years ago. He and I built a 75’ schooner and sailed, chartered, and loved life. Robert lived to age 92. He was one of the most loving men I have ever known, topped only by his son. .

His daughter, Janice Thompson, is the president of The Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor, and makes documentaries of these mens’ lives and stories, available on the internet.
5 reviews
September 18, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed the story line in this continuation of the Todd Ingram series of books. My father fought in WWII but in the European theatre and so that's the side of the war where most of my WWII related reading has been focused. While admittedly this is historical fiction, this series has given me a better understanding of the dynamics of the Pacific theatre and insight into a number of historical individuals cited in the story and the roles they and the U.S. Navy played in defeating the Imperial Japanese military.

I would have given a 5 star rating had not the proof reading effort been so poor. Aside from numerous instances in which complete words were missing from sentences, there are almost four dozen instances where the main character (Alton C. "Todd" Ingram) is annoyingly referred to as "Ingham". I can somewhat understand leaving a word out of a sentence here and there, but to miss the spelling of the main character of the book, and to miss it so often, is completely off the charts in failure. Even with that said, I likely would have read this book regardless had I known about the poor job of proof reading prior to picking it up. My three star rating is less about the story and more about the publisher's poor performance in bringing this book to the reading public.
Profile Image for David D'Arcy.
22 reviews1 follower
December 13, 2024
Another Action-Packed and Suspenseful Story

I enjoyed this book, but I wonder why, as a former Navy Lieutenant, why he used non, Navy phrases. There were meetings with Admirals and their staff, where one of the officers call the room to attention, using the Army’s ‘Room, ah ten hut’ (Room Attention), instead of, ‘Attention on Deck.’ As an author, he’s well educated. He uses words that I’ve never heard of (glad I download Amazon’s ebook so I could highlight words to look up with their Kendle app’s built-in dictionary.

I give this story four stars. There were love scenes that served more of a distraction rather than helping move the story along. But, out at sea, the combat seemed real, and was exciting. Another reason for four stars is that if you don’t have a Navy-at-sea background, you might not know what’s going on, forcing you to look things up.
19 reviews
October 31, 2024
Riveting

This is my second time to read The Todd Ingram series. I still love it. Great plot and characters.
I deducted 1 star because Mr. Gobbell seems to have neglected to have hired a proofreader before publication. For example, the the protagonist name is Ingram, yet it was spelled “ Ingham” 53 times in the book instead. This book is filled with missing or extra pronouns and adjectives, incorrect spacing, punctuation is all over the place and because of all of the above, sentence structure is confusing.
Spell check is not a substitute for proofreading and one never proofreads their own material, not accurately.
I am still looking forward to reading the rest of series.
Profile Image for Brian.
401 reviews
June 8, 2020
A GREAT story, but 2 stars were lost to piss poor editing / proofreading

An action packed read that is conjoined by the other books in this saga. Great character development, dynamic characters, a typical war movie set in the oceans of the world. The editing & proofreading were pathetic though, enough to cause this reader to lose the momentum that a paragraph was building up to. Very distracting and quite frankly I grew rather tired of sending the publisher Notices of the errors & needed corrections (a feature in this reading app).
67 reviews1 follower
April 13, 2020
More Enjoyable The Second Time!

I was a little concerned, because I had read this book and remembered the a major items of the storyline and plots. By the second chapter, I was pulled back into book as though it was a new. As the forth book in this series, it easily stands alone (storyline; character development; and believable action)! I highly recommend this and the complete series! 👍😎
7 reviews
July 10, 2021
Over all the story line for Todd Ingram continues, with some predictable character development/ changes. I enjoy this type of historic fiction material, which tends to be both dramatic and low stress at the same time. If I were to have one complaint, it is not about the book per se. Rather, the Kindle edition seems to have a high number of mis-spellings/ editing errors. These take away from the flow of the story line.
Profile Image for Sam.
273 reviews4 followers
July 27, 2021
Another fast-paced slice of reality amid actual events in the South Pacific

The war rages and unbelievable things happen within the framework which supports centuries old gangsters, Nazi leaders fleeing certain capture and death, and battles with the potential to go either way. Outstanding characters, with realistic destinies, complete with the vernacular of the times. Another superb tale and well worth the time.
7 reviews
June 2, 2023
The author has a good understanding of Naval Officers and command. The engagements with enemy forces at sea are realistic and captivating. A good description of weapon systems and wartime engagements with the enemy in WWII. Following lead characters through their experiences in the Pacific war is captivating.
Profile Image for Chaplain Stanley Chapin.
1,978 reviews22 followers
June 29, 2020
A World War Two story

I have read the previous books with great anticipation, this on not so much. Like some stories of super heroes there comes a time , when it is just too much, this was one.
118 reviews1 follower
July 23, 2020
WWII PACIFIC ACTION,

An Exciting and Fast Paced Series of Todd Ingrahm Adventures that take you into Naval action & individual episodes. This is the 4th book in the TODD INGRAHM SERIES, but the first I have read. Will read the next, then go to the 1st book.
A
4 reviews
December 2, 2020
Review

This author, and this book series, is pretty much amazing. The weaving of actual history, geographical locations, terminology of the day and the complex plots are extraordinary. An occasional typo but rare. Really well done.
From a retired career Mustang Marine major.
Profile Image for Bob  Love.
Author 3 books
Read
December 23, 2020
I recently discovered Gobbell through Kindle Unlimited books and have been reading his entire series of Tod Ingram and WWII. They are hard to put down. Very good writing, easy to stay with it and immerse yourself into the stories. I am and will read anything he writes.
Profile Image for Loretta Gabriel.
833 reviews6 followers
January 14, 2021
Suspenseful and action packed.

The author has written a very intriguing and enjoyable story about the actions of Destroyer Navy’s actions during WWII. There is a great deal of excitement that will keep you entertained and guessing. Very enjoyable reading.
14 reviews
June 23, 2021
Another Excellent Read

Another great read by this author. A great series. While the adventures of Todd Ingram and the number of coincidences strain plausibility, the action and the naval details are just great.
6 reviews
December 22, 2021
Outstanding WWII Thriller!

Have been reading the whole series and this is one more well-written book! The action is real and as in the other books contains stories based on actual situations. I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in WWII.
1 review
February 18, 2023
I enjoyed all four books so far, John Gobbell is a great author

I’m going to book 5 soon can hardly wait. One thing is there seems to be no profanity I hate it when I see poor writing, Thank You
6 reviews
October 15, 2023
Mind Blowing

Where does a storyline like this come from? Like four novels in one. I still back where a RAF Wellington dropped a life raft. What mind conceives these event? History or imagination? Either way I couldn’t put it down.
805 reviews8 followers
June 19, 2024
Wonderful book

Todd gets out of it all one way or another, nine lives or the luck of the Irish. But he is beginning to see God's protection. The plot is ver moving and fast paced. Well written and well researched. Can't wait for next book.
9 reviews
July 2, 2024
A great sea adventure

The best of the four Ingram series yet. Plenty of uncertainty and emotional twists and turns. One of the best Pacific war yarns I have read. Being familiar with the Navy bases in the Bay area just made it even a taster read. Go ahead start the series for yourself.
Profile Image for Dave Hammett.
285 reviews1 follower
May 31, 2020
Another good one

Poor man just can't keep a ship under him! This time he goes a!most around the world and ends up back where he started.
Profile Image for DONALD A. BOBILIN.
8 reviews
June 30, 2020
Todd Ingram says continues .

Very engaging book. Very good story line and a good view of military life in WW2. Can't wait to read the next book in this series.
179 reviews1 follower
September 17, 2020
Great continuation

Todd Ingram continues his naval career during WWII. Is carried and left for dead and rescued. His wife had a baby and his supervisor Captain Lands gets engaged.
100 reviews2 followers
September 23, 2020
Contuining Story

When you write a containing story you hope that each book is as good as the last book. So far each book has been very very good!
1,336 reviews8 followers
November 5, 2020
Gobbell is very good at including "technical stuff" without turning the reader off. This was an excellent military novel.
389 reviews2 followers
February 20, 2021
The Neptune Strategy

As usual a well written Todd Ingram adventure in the South Pacific. Makes one feel as if they are in the middle of Naval warfare.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews

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