Honorable Mention

Robert Macomber covers a genuinely underexplored theatre of the Civil War — South Florida coasts and the Caribbean — with the kind of nautical authenticity that reviewers and Good Old Boat magazine called first-rate. Peter Wake is a compelling protagonist, and the episodic mission structure keeps the tension up even if it lacks a single sustained arc. New readers should start at book one in the Honor Series, but for anyone already invested in Wake, this is a confident, well-crafted entry.