Synopses & Reviews
Cmdr. Peter Wake, Office of Naval Intelligence, is in French Indochina in 1883 on a secret mission for President Chester Arthur.
The novel opens with Wake aboard a riverboat on the Mekong River. The mission sounded simple in Washington: deliver the American president’s reply to a confidential naval offer from the king of Cambodia, while clandestinely assessing the region’s political and military situation. Wake figures it will take two more weeks and he’ll be homeward bound.
Six months later, after nearly dying at the hands of opium warlords, Chinese-Malay pirates, and French gangsters; after suffering starvation at sea, surviving a typhoon, being marooned on a beach, and enduring a horrific full-scale battle—Wake is still there. Exhausted, frustrated, and scared, he and his motley band of companions can now testify that nothing is simple in the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Empire of Vietnam.
This story illuminates the beginning of the bloody cultural clash that lasted for the next hundred years in Southeast Asia, with each side determined to avenge their honored dead.
The Honored Dead is the seventh in the award-winning Honor Series of naval historical fiction following the life and career of Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake from 1863 to 1907, a time when the United States Navy helped America become a global power.
The previous novels are At the Edge of Honor (winner of the Patrick D. Smith Literary Award as Best Historical Novel of Florida), Point of Honor (winner of the John Esten Cooke Literary Award for Best Work in Southern Fiction), Honorable Mention, A Dishonorable Few, An Affair of Honor, and A Different Kind of Honor (winner of the American Library Association’s Boyd Literary Award for Military Fiction).
Synopsis
On what at first appears to be a simple mission for the U.S. president in French Indochina in 1883, naval intelligence officer Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake encounters opium warlords, Chinese-Malay pirates, and French gangsters.
About the Author
Robert N. Macomber is an internationally recognized, award-winning maritime writer, lecturer, and television commentator. He is a lecturer at the Distinguished Military Author Series of the Center for Army Analysis in Washington, D.C.; Caribbean/Latin American lecturer at the U.S. Southern Command's Notable Military Author Series; guest author and lecturer aboard the Queen Mary 2 since her maiden voyage, as well as the Silver Sea fleet of luxury liners; a maritime commentator for Florida PBS; and a naval history lecturer for the American History Forum and the Civil War Education Association. His lectures span 32 various maritime topics. Mr. Macomber is the author of the acclaimed Honor Series of naval novels and is proud to have readers in ten countries. He also has written many magazine articles. His awards include the Florida Genealogy Society's Outstanding Achievement Award for his nonfiction work on Florida's maritime history, the Patrick Smith Literary Award for Best Historical Novel of Florida (At the Edge of Honor), and the John Esten Cooke Literary Award for Best Work in Southern Fiction (Point of Honor). He is the guest author at regional and international book festivals and was named by Florida Monthly magazine as one of the 22 Most Intriguing Floridians of 2006. His sixth novel, A Different Kind of Honor, won the highest national honor in his genre: the American Library Association's 2008 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. It was awarded, along with the $5,000 in prize money, on July 1, 2008, at the ALA's annual convention in Anaheim, California. Each year Macomber travels approximately 15,000 sea miles around the globe, giving lectures and researching his novels.