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The Perfect Wreck - Old Ironsides and HMS Java: A Story of 1812
December 29, 1812 - The date of one of the most dramatic sea battles in naval history. HMS Java and the USS Constitution (the famous "Old Ironsides") face off in the War of 1812's most spectacular blue-water frigate action. Their separate stories begin in August 1812-one in England and the other in New England. Then, the tension and suspense rise, week-by-week, as the ship
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Paperback, 382 pages
Published
May 23rd 2011
by Fireship Press
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-17 of 17)
Steven Maffeo writes with the authority that comes from years of research and familiarity with naval life. Maintaining historical integrity Maffeo chronicles the events leading up to a fateful sea battle off the coast of Brazil in 1812. He links facts with probabilites without indulging in too much fictional intrusion into the private thoughts of real historical figures, beyond what evidence they provided in logs and letters. I loved the telling details: The commands given by the officers, the l
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Perfect Wreck.
By tfinnegan on July 27, 2011
Format: Paperback
The Perfect Wreck by Steven Maffeo serves an invaluable purpose for the student of the Age of Sail in seeing merit in a fictional account of a non-fiction event. The considerable inter-character dialogue connects a myriad of factual data that provides the reader with a definitive understanding of one of the most important naval battles that took place in 1812. The absence of footnotes might suggest the author has t ...more
By tfinnegan on July 27, 2011
Format: Paperback
The Perfect Wreck by Steven Maffeo serves an invaluable purpose for the student of the Age of Sail in seeing merit in a fictional account of a non-fiction event. The considerable inter-character dialogue connects a myriad of factual data that provides the reader with a definitive understanding of one of the most important naval battles that took place in 1812. The absence of footnotes might suggest the author has t ...more
Thorough research mixed with superior writing is the mark of Steve Maffeo. He has followed his non-fiction works, Most Secret and Confidential: Intelligence in the Age of Nelson and Seize, Burn, or Sink: The Thoughts and Words of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson with an informative and entertaining age-of-sail novel. The Perfect Wreck is an account of USS Constitution and HMS Java during the War of 1812. Maffeo used a considerable number of historical documents to ensure incredible accuracy, and incl
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The outcome of the meeting between Constitution and Java is well known, and there is a danger with any story which has a forgone conclusion that tension or excitement can be either missing, or contrived. This is definitely not the case with A Perfect Wreck; from the start, with Constitution active and potent at sea, and Java working up at Portsmouth after her capture from the French, the story pulls the reader forward with a pace that is quite compelling. Maffeo adds poignance by fleshing out th
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Riveting. Not my usual "read" but - once started - couldn't put it down.
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