The years is After three years, the outcome of the Great War poised on a knife-edge. One man believes he can make a difference. He has attacked and sunk the Gerda, a neutral ship in a neutral port. He is labelled as mad man. Smith already has a reputation The years is Smith already has a reputation as a maverick. Now he faces professional ruin as he is called to account for the sinking. But he is certain he was right. He is sure the Gerda was one of two ships masquerading under neutral flags that are in fact supply ships for the German warships, Kondor and Wolf. These two superbly equipped German warships threaten to annihilate British shipping on the Pacific seaboard.
Only an outdated cruiser and a young captain who is prepared to break all the rules stand in their way… As the battle draws to a climax, the battered HMS Thunder will be facing trials fiercer and more terrifying than any yet witnessed at sea. Alan Evans has produced a cracking thriller' The Daily Mirror 'Evans provides a different sea story, sustained suspense and vivid battle scenes' - Publishers Weekly Alan Evans is a thriller writer known for vividly recreating the atmosphere of the First World War.
Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books. Kindle Edition , pages. Published October 29th by Endeavour Press first published July 1st Commander Cochrane Smith 1. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Thunder at Dawn , please sign up.
Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Dec 15, John rated it really liked it Shelves: I've been on a reading frenzie of naval action adventure novels lately. Dec 20, Ian rated it really liked it Shelves: But when the ship's captain suffers a fatal accident and intelligence suggests that two powerful German surface raiders are headed for the area, Smith finds himself in command and very much in the war.
Short o , Commander David Smith is thought to have lost his nerve after being sunk in his previous ship and has had a high-profile affair with a society lady. Short of fuel, outgunned and outpaced by the enemy ships he runs for a neutral port and is then faced with the choice of fighting against impossible odds or allowing Thunder to be interned.
Paperback Editions
This is a pacey thriller which keeps you gripped right from the start. Some of the characters are perhaps a little one-dimensional but it makes up for that with breathless action sequences and a strong plot. It suffers from the curse of the OCR conversion. The letters "fl" in particular mostly being rendered as "H" or "B" - annoying in a book that's full of "flashes" from signal lamps and shell fire.
Poor presentation aside though, an entertaining seafaring thriller.
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When two German warships enter the area, Thunder and her crew must prepare to face opponents who are both too strong to fight and too fast to run from. Now it has to be admitted that what I read was only a readers digest version but it is a story that has stayed with me and influenced me own e , off the South American coast, HMS Thunder is worn out and obsolete armored cruiser, manned by the dregs of the service, with a captain accused of cowardice and the only Royal Navy ship in the region. Now it has to be admitted that what I read was only a readers digest version but it is a story that has stayed with me and influenced me own efforts.
Alan Evans | LibraryThing
The storyline doesn't cover anything that hasn't been done many times before, but what it does it does well. Oct 25, Hal rated it it was ok Shelves: This book is not in the class of great writers of British naval warfare as C.
The plot was tangled, slowly paced and at the end left the reader hanging. I didn't feel I knew any of the characters. The writing was tedious and unexciting. As someone who greatly enjoys such books as the Hornblower series, I was really disappointed. May 21, Doc rated it liked it Shelves: The author has an unwarranted aversion to legitimate, necessary commas.
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This book, the first in a series, brings its story to end, but somehow the serial-setup ending still felt weak. Exciting maverick captain who runs a tight ship,not popular with some crew or politicians but gets the job done one way or another. First class non stop read. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Putting his career, his ship, and his crew in jeopardy at every turn as long as it serves the greater good of defeating Germany.
The stories may be fiction, but the battle scenes, of which there are many, have the ring of truth. Putting the battles in the context of WWI with its limited communications and technology, means that there is rarely help on the way. Once confronted by the enemy, you are on your own to survive on your wits. Captain Smith is a master at finding a way to make the most of his limited resources and give the enemy all that can be wrung out of Smith's inferior armaments. This one is about breaking all the rules, attacking supposedly neutral ships, because Smith alone believes they are German spy ships tied to a larger German plot to sink all British shipping on the South American Coast.
If he is wrong, he could be executed. If he's right, he alone sees the German plans and the precarious position of the British and their allies. A preemptive strike is the only way he can hinder the German plans, but if he's wrong he is destined for a Court Martial and general condemnation, if not execution.
A quick, thoroughly entertaining read! I first read Thunder at Dawn years ago and was delighted to see it appear in Kindle format. Having now re-read it, I recall just why I so enjoyed it. This is a taut, gripping sea story, equal to Douglas Reeman's work.
Thunder at Dawn
Set in WWI, it tells the story of an aging British light cruiser commanded by an officer banished from the Grand Fleet taking on two modern German cruisers off Chile. In many ways, the story hardens back to the days of Nelson's navy, with action ashore and at sea. The author throws in several twists that you don't see coming, and the ending is satisfying. This is the first of a series of books with the same protagonist, but I think the best of the lot.
I know that the second book is now available for Kindle, and I hope that he remaining books will soon be added. My only quibble about the book is that it has been somewhat poorly adapted to the Kindle format, a deficiency that I hope the publisher or Amazon will soon remedy.
Faithful Amazon customers need a corrected version of this great novel. Some glitches with the Kindle format, though hence 4 stars. It's a 5-star novel. I'm giving 4 stars because I have the Kindle edition, and the translation to Kindle must have been done from a paper scan, without an editor. Kindle edition is poorly edited i.
Sink or Capture!
Typeset words with ligatures get scanned and converted into strange words. After a while, you figure out what happened, and you convert letter combinations back into the original letters. Well paced, well-plotted, sympathetic characters. I think I would prefer this author's works in paper form, given the poor quality of the Kindle edition. Alan Evans has written a well-paced story that starts slowly but just keeps getting better as it goes along. The main character is compelling; I intend to follow up on all the novels that cover his career.
The setting of WW1 in the Pacific is unusual and prompted me to my maps to visualize the area of the ship's operation. This is a great read. The only negative I have is that; like so many e-books the proofreading is non-existent. There can't possibly have been a human being involved in putting this text into electronic form. If there was then who ever was responsible; I hope you have a surgeon with as much attention to detail as you do.
Interesting and exciting book about a war and theater I have not read much about. The only problem I encountered with this book is that it is in dire need of editing. The typos kept me from ordering the next book from the author. They were not bad to start but became more prevalent the further I got into the book and became very distracting. Splendid adventure in such an unusual place even if the time is WW I. The captains escape from that confined port is brilliant - or improbable, Although this is an old ship, it still has those 9" guns. If you are not sure about body parts spattered about the damaged ship just review the sinking of the Bismark by the British during WW II.
Although the Royal Navy mercifully quit bombarding the Bismark, it was not soon enough. Just received Ship of Force. This one is in the dead center of WW I naval action. Someday I hope our captain is assigned to a modern war ship. This story is as good as Mr. Evans previous book Ship of Force and I would have given it five stars however this Kindle copy is riddled with typos.
Some are just annoying like a missing quotation mark or the numerous stray periods, but "had" typed b-a-d more than once, exclamation points as I and things like "Mt" which I never did figure out, are a bit much. You are hard pressed to find one page that doesn't have at least one typo and that really detracts from the story line.