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The Abalone Ukulele: A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue
In this historical adventure, cultures from China, Korea, Japan, and the United States collide in 1913 over three tons of Japanese gold ingots.
Three ordinary men—a disgraced Korean tribute courier, a bookish naval officer, and a polyglot third-class quartermaster—must foil Japanese subversion and, with sub rosa assistance from Asiatic Station, highjack that gold to finance a Korean insurrection. Three ordinary women complicate, and complement, their an enigmatic changsan courtesan, a feisty Down East consular clerk, and a clever Chinese farm-girl.
It is a tale that wends through the outskirts of Peking to the Yukon River; from the San Francisco waterfront to a naval landing party isolated on a Woosung battlefield; from ships of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet moored on Battleship Row to a junk on the Yangtze; and from the Korean gold mines of Unsan to a coaling quay in Shanghai. Soon a foreign intelligence service, a revolutionary army, and two Chinese triads converge on a nation’s ransom in gold . . .
Praise for The Abalone Ukulele
“A masterclass in historical fiction. With painstaking research and a gift for story spinning, Crossland brings to brilliant life a sprawling epic of greed, gold, and redemption. Crossland’s gift for converting historic details into character and narrative makes The Abalone Ukulele an immersive read.” —Joseph A. Williams, author of Seventeen Fathoms Deep and The Sunken Treasure
“Crossland’s tale of shenanigans, greed, nobility, [and] slivers of grace propels across a geography spanning Shanghai, the Klondike gold fields, and San Francisco’s wharves. His characters are elemental, with a commedia dell'arte quality . . . . Clues to a mystery are sprinkled skillfully throughout, keeping the reader turning the page.” —Loretta Goldberg, author of the award-winning novel, The Reversible Mask
“ Maritime historical fiction in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian.” —Steve Robinson, author of No Guts, No Glory
Three ordinary men—a disgraced Korean tribute courier, a bookish naval officer, and a polyglot third-class quartermaster—must foil Japanese subversion and, with sub rosa assistance from Asiatic Station, highjack that gold to finance a Korean insurrection. Three ordinary women complicate, and complement, their an enigmatic changsan courtesan, a feisty Down East consular clerk, and a clever Chinese farm-girl.
It is a tale that wends through the outskirts of Peking to the Yukon River; from the San Francisco waterfront to a naval landing party isolated on a Woosung battlefield; from ships of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet moored on Battleship Row to a junk on the Yangtze; and from the Korean gold mines of Unsan to a coaling quay in Shanghai. Soon a foreign intelligence service, a revolutionary army, and two Chinese triads converge on a nation’s ransom in gold . . .
Praise for The Abalone Ukulele
“A masterclass in historical fiction. With painstaking research and a gift for story spinning, Crossland brings to brilliant life a sprawling epic of greed, gold, and redemption. Crossland’s gift for converting historic details into character and narrative makes The Abalone Ukulele an immersive read.” —Joseph A. Williams, author of Seventeen Fathoms Deep and The Sunken Treasure
“Crossland’s tale of shenanigans, greed, nobility, [and] slivers of grace propels across a geography spanning Shanghai, the Klondike gold fields, and San Francisco’s wharves. His characters are elemental, with a commedia dell'arte quality . . . . Clues to a mystery are sprinkled skillfully throughout, keeping the reader turning the page.” —Loretta Goldberg, author of the award-winning novel, The Reversible Mask
“ Maritime historical fiction in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian.” —Steve Robinson, author of No Guts, No Glory
346 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 29, 2021
About the author
R.L. Crossland
3 books6 followersWith the benefit of thirty-five years' service, active and reserve, as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer (two hot wars, one cold), Crossland has found projecting his grasp of naval intrigue one hundred years into the past a worthy challenge. Captain Crossland has written internationally on the subject of maritime unconventional warfare and includes U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and the New York Times among his credits. His historical crime novel, Jade Rooster, received the Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Award for naval literature in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 27, 2021
Spanning the years 1893-1916, The Abalone Ukulele follows the exploits of enlisted US Navy Quartermaster Hobson and Lt. (j.g.) Stuyvesant Van Rensselaer Draper III (New York Naval Militia appointed to the Office of Naval Intelligence). Both are characters from Roger Crossland’s previous novel, Jade Rooster. The Abalone Ukulele is a protracted episode in the lives of these characters, and not a direct sequel to Jade Rooster – much as in life, we seem to move from stage to stage without a large overlying dramatic scheme pushing us towards a singular destiny. You can read one without the other, though I do recommend Jade Rooster, which is a superb novel.
These two characters represent the Navy figuratively from the wardroom to the lower decks, and complement each other in the ad-hoc direct action/intelligence unit of two that they seem to find themselves in. Hobson is streetwise, a born Asia-hand. Draper represents the superlative qualities of the East Coast elite upper-class – educated, refined, chivalrous, and brave.
There is also Jung-hee “Skookum” Yi, disgraced officer, Korean patriot and the character who largely drives the plot. A Chinese prostitute named Clementine - a clever, bright woman who is Hobson’s love interest, striving to transcend her station in life, and Franconia Knapp, US consular secretary, an independent woman with an interesting lineage, equally bristling at her socially designated role.
With these characters Crossland shows his strength as an author of historical fiction. Crossland has obviously done his research and fully fleshes out the historic, political, and social contexts of these Asian characters. This novel is somewhat of a deep dive into East Asian geopolitics and conflicts of the pre-WWI era. There are a bewildering multiplicity of thieves, revolutionaries and triads jostling for power. As in Jade Rooster, Crossland writes about them with incredible deftness, so you don’t feel as if you’re at the receiving end of a dry history lecture. Beyond that, Crossland flexes his literary skills that make the reader feel as if they are treading, seeing and smelling, the labyrinthian back streets of Shanghai.
Crossland’s female characters are not insignificant. They grapple with the social mores of the era, and each are on an arc to live their lives with more agency than permitted in a time firmly dominated by men.
The other treat this novel gives the reader is a prologue detailing the rise of “Skookum” Yi. With the same skill in integrating historic research into a vivid story, we follow Yi’s initial arc from an early defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the backstreets of Tientsin to the Alaskan gold fields. I was not prepared to enjoy this portion of the book – but with the depth of detail provided by Crossland – it was entirely fascinating, and somehow, I’d like to see him write another story in the Yukon.
The quality that drew me to Crossland’s work initially is in full force here – his familiarity and love for the Naval service, and its history and traditions. Crossland is a former US Navy SEAL, intelligence officer, and combat veteran with a deep respect for the lore of his service. I can’t state enough how engrossing it is.
It is a complex book, as Crossland takes his time to flesh out his characters and show the reader how they arrived at their motivations, as they hurtle towards a shared climactic event. His characters are complicated, and what I really enjoy about how Crossland writes – you feel they react realistically to the situations that challenge them. Obviously, there are moments that were included for dramatic effect, but they feel genuine.
Recommended for lovers of historical and naval fiction. If you liked the milieu of Richard McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles and Marcus Goodrich’s Delilah, you’ll deeply enjoy this book.
These two characters represent the Navy figuratively from the wardroom to the lower decks, and complement each other in the ad-hoc direct action/intelligence unit of two that they seem to find themselves in. Hobson is streetwise, a born Asia-hand. Draper represents the superlative qualities of the East Coast elite upper-class – educated, refined, chivalrous, and brave.
There is also Jung-hee “Skookum” Yi, disgraced officer, Korean patriot and the character who largely drives the plot. A Chinese prostitute named Clementine - a clever, bright woman who is Hobson’s love interest, striving to transcend her station in life, and Franconia Knapp, US consular secretary, an independent woman with an interesting lineage, equally bristling at her socially designated role.
With these characters Crossland shows his strength as an author of historical fiction. Crossland has obviously done his research and fully fleshes out the historic, political, and social contexts of these Asian characters. This novel is somewhat of a deep dive into East Asian geopolitics and conflicts of the pre-WWI era. There are a bewildering multiplicity of thieves, revolutionaries and triads jostling for power. As in Jade Rooster, Crossland writes about them with incredible deftness, so you don’t feel as if you’re at the receiving end of a dry history lecture. Beyond that, Crossland flexes his literary skills that make the reader feel as if they are treading, seeing and smelling, the labyrinthian back streets of Shanghai.
Crossland’s female characters are not insignificant. They grapple with the social mores of the era, and each are on an arc to live their lives with more agency than permitted in a time firmly dominated by men.
The other treat this novel gives the reader is a prologue detailing the rise of “Skookum” Yi. With the same skill in integrating historic research into a vivid story, we follow Yi’s initial arc from an early defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the backstreets of Tientsin to the Alaskan gold fields. I was not prepared to enjoy this portion of the book – but with the depth of detail provided by Crossland – it was entirely fascinating, and somehow, I’d like to see him write another story in the Yukon.
The quality that drew me to Crossland’s work initially is in full force here – his familiarity and love for the Naval service, and its history and traditions. Crossland is a former US Navy SEAL, intelligence officer, and combat veteran with a deep respect for the lore of his service. I can’t state enough how engrossing it is.
It is a complex book, as Crossland takes his time to flesh out his characters and show the reader how they arrived at their motivations, as they hurtle towards a shared climactic event. His characters are complicated, and what I really enjoy about how Crossland writes – you feel they react realistically to the situations that challenge them. Obviously, there are moments that were included for dramatic effect, but they feel genuine.
Recommended for lovers of historical and naval fiction. If you liked the milieu of Richard McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles and Marcus Goodrich’s Delilah, you’ll deeply enjoy this book.
July 19, 2021
The ABALONE UKULELE, the most recent novel by Captain Roger Crossland USN (ret.), offers an intriguing look at a pivotal point in time on the far side of the Pacific Ocean – a period spanning some thirty years prior to World War One and little known outside of that immediate region. Captain Crossland has expertly interwoven historical events and personages with fictional events and heroic characters, providing a powerful and intimate look at the chessboard of international power play. The story is a skillfully woven interplay between four nations – China, Korea, Japan, and the United States of America – and presents readers with events as seen through the eyes of those directly engaged in the action. Trust, betrayal, political intrigue, and amazing heroics, performed by ordinary men and women faced with extraordinary circumstances, move through the story at an extraordinary pace.
Captain Crossland continues the fine tradition of maritime historical fiction established by renowned author, Patrick O’Brian, and leaves the reader turning the final page and hoping desperately that more will follow.
-Steve Robinson, Author of the book ‘NO GUTS, NO GLORY – Unmasking Navy SEAL Imposters’ (2002); a former enlisted US Navy SEAL whose service was contemporary with Captain Crossland.
Captain Crossland continues the fine tradition of maritime historical fiction established by renowned author, Patrick O’Brian, and leaves the reader turning the final page and hoping desperately that more will follow.
-Steve Robinson, Author of the book ‘NO GUTS, NO GLORY – Unmasking Navy SEAL Imposters’ (2002); a former enlisted US Navy SEAL whose service was contemporary with Captain Crossland.
April 23, 2023
I did not finish reading it. But I recommend this to people who like historical fiction:)
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May 4, 2022HISTORICAL FICTION › THE ABALONE UKULELE: A TALE OF FAR EASTERN INTRIGUE BY R L CROSSLAND
The Abalone Ukulele: A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue by R L Crossland
BY THEPRAIRIESBOOKREVIEW on SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
A first-rate historical tale…
Crossland returns with this poignant historical about the temper and times of three ordinary men in the 1910s Shanghai. Three ordinary men, a disgraced Korean tribute courier, a bookish naval officer, and a polyglot third-class quartermaster, decide to come together to support a Korean insurrection. But with China and Japan’s involvement, the stakes are simply too high. Crossland skillfully interweaves historical events and characters with fiction, providing an insightful, intimate look at a pivotal period in history. He infuses the deeply engrossing plot with the knowledge that lives become most vivid in small moments of connection, and reveals his ideas about love, morality, greed, and power play through his protagonists’ tangled life stories. The prose is rich with emotion, empathy, and human drama, and Yi and others are compelling in their basic goodness. This ambitious, insightful, and intricately rendered story of individual struggles and international power play makes for a wholly compelling read. Crossland is an author to watch.
The Abalone Ukulele
A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue
Pub date June 29, 2021
ISBN 978-1735937878
The Abalone Ukulele: A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue by R L Crossland
BY THEPRAIRIESBOOKREVIEW on SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
A first-rate historical tale…
Crossland returns with this poignant historical about the temper and times of three ordinary men in the 1910s Shanghai. Three ordinary men, a disgraced Korean tribute courier, a bookish naval officer, and a polyglot third-class quartermaster, decide to come together to support a Korean insurrection. But with China and Japan’s involvement, the stakes are simply too high. Crossland skillfully interweaves historical events and characters with fiction, providing an insightful, intimate look at a pivotal period in history. He infuses the deeply engrossing plot with the knowledge that lives become most vivid in small moments of connection, and reveals his ideas about love, morality, greed, and power play through his protagonists’ tangled life stories. The prose is rich with emotion, empathy, and human drama, and Yi and others are compelling in their basic goodness. This ambitious, insightful, and intricately rendered story of individual struggles and international power play makes for a wholly compelling read. Crossland is an author to watch.
The Abalone Ukulele
A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue
Pub date June 29, 2021
ISBN 978-1735937878
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews