cover image Lieutenant Christopher

Lieutenant Christopher

William P. Mack. Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of Ame, $19.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-877853-53-1

Eighteen-year-old Matthew Christopher leaves his father's Annapolis shipyard for a warship in this straightforward historical sea adventure from Vice-Admiral (Ret.) Mack (South to Java). Christopher's swashbuckling days begin in 1775 under the command of Captain Nicholas Biddle of the Continental Navy, but he soon comes to the attention of John Paul Jones and serves as his aide on the frigate Ranger. After a brief, happy retirement with his new wife and baby son, Christopher fights alongside Jones again, this time aboard the Bonhomme Richard (where he gets to hear Jones announce ""I have not yet begun to fight""). Despite anachronistic, wooden dialogue (the Christophers' marriage is a bland model of 1990s egalitarianism) and a surprising lack of general historical knowledge (his colonials read Dickens), Mack writes descriptions of shipbuilding and sea battles just vibrant enough to please maritime-adventure junkies. (Feb.)