The overall story was well thought out and the wrap up of the trilogy shows that as all the pieces fall into place. It’s clear that McDermott knows his way around ships and boats and all manner of water vessel.
Some of the side characters were written a bit too stereotypical, however. My confidence in the story faded whenever those characters where on the page. Much as it did every time someone survived a situation of otherwise certain doom. This tale seems to follow the luckiest people in the whole event. After a while, it became a bit boring as they narrowly escaped time and again, due either to their enemies’ incompetence, a cunning and convenient advantage, or just plain luck.
The performance, unfortunately, just didn’t cut it for me. No doubt, Kevin Pierce is excellent for certain books, but he seems to lack the range to bring a story with this many characters to life without them all sounding the same. His easy southern drawl felt particularly out of place while reading for characters from New England and his delivery with some of the aforementioned stereotypical side characters felt quite uncomfortable, not due to what he had to say, but in the way he said it.
As a whole, I enjoyed the story and found it to be an interesting topic that I don’t see touched on very often. the realism and attention to detail for certain thing the author clearly knows well was refreshing, but some of the characters and events felt flat and uninspired and the performance regularly drew me out of the story.