On 9 August 1943, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Todd Ingram catches a ride aboard PT 72 at Tulagi headed across Sealark Channel to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Ingram is bound for the United States and a new command.
Only this is wartime, and nothing is certain. Reporting to Camp Crocodile, First Marine headquarters on Guadalcanal, Ingram finds his orders changed. Rather than a pristine destroyer fresh from the shipyard, his new command is the USS Dunagan.
And there’s a catch: the destroyer is aground at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands, a sitting duck for the Japanese.
Danger’s Ebb, the eighth installment in Gobbell’s popular Todd Ingram series, follows Somewhere in the Pacific.
Ingram’s ride to Espiritu Santo is aboard “a faded old TBF” Avenger torpedo bomber. The “older-ruddy-complected” pilot is Flying Sergeant Gilroy Hitchcock, a China Marine straight out of Central Casting. As the TBF, nicknamed “Lolli,” wobbles into the air from the muddy Henderson airstrip, Ingram’s adventures are only beginning. His first view of the Dunagan from the air is one he would rather forget. As he climbs aboard the ship, the situation isn’t much better as he visualizes “a Japanese twin engine Betty flying right toward us carrying torpedoes.”
At about the same time, his wife, US Army Nurse Corps Captain Helen Ingram, receives a late-night phone call in San Pedro, California, from Admiral Chester Nimitz’s flag lieutenant, summoning her to Pearl Harbor to testify at an inquiry about her actions while a Japanese prisoner early in the war. Halfway around the world, in Nazi-occupied Paris, Coco Chanel expands her perfumery enterprise to New Caledonia in the Southwest Pacific, dispatching Andre and Charlotte Lapresse, with their daughter Lolli, expert parfumiers, to Noumea.
In Hollywood, Commander Dudley W. “Mush” Morton, legendary skipper of the submarine USS Wahoo, encounters actor John Garfield and Cary Grant on the set of Destination Tokyo. Danger’s Ebb is signature John Gobbell, splicing together a page-turning historical thriller on a broad canvas stretching from France to the war in the Pacific.
And as with each of the novels in the Todd Ingram series, the characters—drawn from real life and his imagination—pay homage to the men and women in the Greatest Generation who served America in uniform eight decades ago. Once again, John Gobbell soars as a crackerjack
storyteller.
—George Jepson
QUARTERDECK | SUMMER 2024
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If you would like to clearly understand life both at sea and ashore in the Pacific during the height of WWII read Danger’s Ebb!
In 1943 my mother was as a Navy Nurse on both New Caledonia and Guadalcanal and my father on the Battleship Washington (BB 56) during multiple actions in the Solomons Islands and the Slot. Danger’s Ebb not only authentically reflects the crucial events that changed the course of the war but captures the heroic and often tragic moments that effected the lives the men and women who asked for no more than to serve their country.
Likewise the leadership examples of Adm Nimitz and Cdr Dudley “Mush” Morton and the feel for life in Hawaii and at the Pacific Fleet headquarters provides an accurate sense of the challenges, decisions and emotions of War in the Pacific.
If you enjoy history and a great story you will really enjoy Danger’s Ebb.
Admiral Thomas B Fargo USN (ret.)
Former Commander in Chief US Pacific Fleet
Former Commander in Chief US Pacific Command
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John Gobbell brings his Naval hero, Todd Ingram, back for a rollicking cross-Pacific tale that deftly mixes history with story telling at its best! From Vichy France to a hard aground destroyer to Pearl Harbor, Hollywood and eventually Vella Lavella, he weaves a tale full of interesting characters, real and imagined. Full of action that will stir the hearts of naval history and fiction enthusiasts, Danger’s Ebb is the latest installment in this current series of tales of WW II war in the Pacific! Carry on, Commander Ingram!
RADM Peter L. Andrus MC USN (Ret)
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Who would have known a World War II novel about the naval battles in the Solomon Islands would begin with the perfume business in 1943 Paris, France. German occupied Paris, that is. In Danger’s Ebb, we meet Coco Chanel and learn of her desperate efforts to prop up Chanel’s sagging European sales. She starts a subsidiary six thousand miles away in Noumena, New Caledonia, a French Provence in the war-torn South Pacific. Chanel chooses the Lapresse family, Andre, his wife Charlotte, and their daughter Lolli, all master parfumers, to go there and get things started. Meanwhile, Todd Ingram is given temporary command of a destroyer grounded nearby off Espiritu Santo. Soon, he is thrown against the Japanese as they roar down The Slot trying to recover what they can out of the Solomon Islands. Character development and plotting are excellent as they are in the entire Todd Ingram series. Uncanny is seeing real-life characters such as Coco Chanel, Arthur Lamar, Chester Nimitz’ flag lieutenant, and sub skipper “Mush Morton.” Gobbell also throws in actors Cary Grant and John Garfield for good measure. This is an excellent work of historical fiction and will keep the reader up until the wee hours.
David L. Snowden, Chief of Police (retired) Beverly Hills, California
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Written like only someone who has served on one of these ships can, John Gobbell takes you inside a combat ship as she goes in harm’s way. Fans of military machines will enjoy the accuracy and technical aspects while fans of World War II history will enjoy the closer look at some of the less studied parts of the conflict. Regardless of why you pick this up you will feel like you are on the bridge in this fast-paced installment in the Todd Ingram series.
Ryan Szimanski, Director of Curational and Educational Affairs, Battleship New Jersey (BB 62) Museum and Memorial
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DANGER’S EBB delivers explosive action in the South Pacific during WWII as LCDR Todd Ingram takes on an overwhelming challenge. Not only must he go toe-to-toe with a Japanese naval force that outnumbers his by over two to one, he must do so with a patched-up destroyer, the USS Dunagan, and a crew that had lost its discipline. Gobbell’s description of the Dunagan’s sea battle in the Solomon Islands will leave you breathless.
W. “Buzz” Bernard, author of the prize-winning series, When Heros Flew
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