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R. L. Crossland
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Jade Rooster: An Asiatic Fleet Thriller Kindle Edition

by R. L. Crossland (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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Two Americans, a naval petty officer and a shipping agent, are drawn into the undercurrents of early 20th-century Yokohama, Inchon, Manilla, and Shanghai as they investigate four grisly beheadings and a missing sailing ship. Smoldering insurgencies in Korea and the Philippines backlight USS Pluto’s course between violence, betrayal, and hope. Blending the historical authenticity of Patrick O’Brian with the crackling dialogue of Raymond Chandler, Crossland establishes himself as a unique voice in nautical fiction.
 
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  1. Print length
    258 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Distribution
  5. Publication date
    August 22, 2017
  6. File size
    896 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“For lovers of military adventures and good old-fashioned detective stores . . . Jade Rooster is a feast.” —Chris Knopf, author of Last Refuge and Two Time

About the Author

Captain Crossland served as a Navy SEAL platoon officer in Vietnam in 1971. During his combat tour in Cà Mau, An Xuyên Province, Vietnam, he participated in Phoenix operations (the abduction of high level Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army leaders) and Britelight operations (the rescue of American P.O.W.s). Immediately following his Vietnam tour, he served as an advisor teaching unconventional warfare tactics to the South Korean Underwater Demolition Teams in Chinhae, Korea. On completion of his active duty, he elected to attend law school and remain in the naval reserve. As a reserve officer he received orders to South Korea on nine additional occasions.
 
In 2002 he was mobilized as a reserve officer for duty with Naval Special Warfare Group One Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central and Southwest Asia. In 2005, Capt. Crossland retired with 35 years commissioned service, active and reserve, as a SEAL officer.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01DEIWLDI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Distribution (August 22, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 22, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 896 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

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R. L. Crossland

R. L. Crossland

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With the benefit of thirty-five years’ service, active and reserve, as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer (two hot wars. one cold), Crossland has found projecting his grasp of naval intrigue one hundred years into the past an agreeable challenge.

Captain Crossland has written internationally on the subject of maritime unconventional warfare and includes U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and the New York Times among his credits. His historical crime novel, Jade Rooster, received the Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Book Award for naval literature in 2008.

Recently The Abalone Ukulele was awarded the Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Book Award also.

In December of 2022, in recognition of his contribution to military and naval literature, and having been an actual combatant, or otherwise involved, in special operations in the Far East (Vietnam and nine trips to Korea) and Afghanistan, CAPT Crossland was awarded the Military Order of Saint Louis by the Saint Patrick's Priory of the autonomous US Grand Priory of the International Templar Organization (OSMTH).

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
19 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

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5.0 out of 5 stars The fine art of verisimilitude ... action and suspense.
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2007
Verified Purchase
JADE ROOSTER

Verisimilitude. The quality of appearing to be true or real.

When I was in junior high school, quite some years ago, my English teacher, Mr. John, assigned the class to write an essay featuring verisimilitude. I looked up the definition of the word and wrote a paper about being at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack. At the time I didn't know much anything about Pearl Harbor, the military, or the war, outside of what I knew from history books, learned from research, or heard from my Uncle Lem who had been in the South Pacific during the War. And I didn't know all that much about writing, either, or anything at all about verisimilitude. I suspect my paper wasn't too good. I don't remember what grade I got. I don't want to.

R.L. Crossland's latest novel, on the other hand, defines verisimilitude. R.L. Crossland is verisimilitude!

Indeed, it's easier to believe that Crossland owns a time machine and used it to visit early 20th Century Japan than it is to believe that JADE ROOSTER is a fiction. Unlike my own high school knowledge of Pearl Harbor, Crossland's knowledge of the topics he covers in JADE ROOSTER - early 20th century Japan, the Navy and merchant marine of the day, sailors and their ways - proves encyclopedic. In fact, JADE ROOSTER falls into that category of fiction I so treasure, the encyclopedic novel, where one finds the likes of Dickens's TALE OF TWO CITIES, Melville's MOBY DICK, and Jules Verne's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. These books prove highly entertaining while being substantially informative.

Crossland writes with a credibility and authority that could only be gained by years in the military. A recently retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer who has written copiously for U.S. Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS and is published frequently on naval matters in THE NEW YORK TIMES, Crossland, a practicing attorney, Sea Scoutmaster, and literary maven whose knowledge of BEOWULF remains unsurpassed among scholars of my acquaintance, holds the rank of master in the craft of fiction. Anyone who has read Crossland's excellent RED ICE will need no further introduction to his special brand of gritty, gripping entertainment.

Anyone who loves the Navy will enjoy JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who enjoys ships and the sea will relish at the adventure of JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who enjoys learning will thrill to the encyclopedic detail of JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who prizes a great mystery will remain enticed throughout JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who appreciates the art of reading should immerse himself in JADE ROOSTER. Perhaps only those who have read nothing except Harry Potter will feel cheated by Crossland; but then again, JADE ROOSTER is an adult book which speaks to readers with fine-tuned sensibilities, adroit literary appreciations, and first class intelligence. In other words, a reader just like you.
9 people found this helpful
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G. S. Hall
5.0 out of 5 stars A jewel of a story
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2022
Verified Purchase
A great story on many levels. An interesting history of the relationship between Japan and Korea in the early 1900s, an authentic look at the US Navy and it’s operations in the Pacific during that time period. Above all, a ripping good mostly maritime adventure and mystery with bad actors and good. The characters are well described and believable, particularly to any current or former Navy types out there. I had not known of Captain Crossland before this read and look forward to his other books. A truly literary warrior.
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H.S.A.
4.0 out of 5 stars A Love Letter to the Asiatic Fleet
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2011
Verified Purchase
"Jade Rooster" evokes the milieu of "The Sand Pebbles" (by Richard McKenna) and Marcus Goodrich's "Delilah". Crossland gives us a novel, steeped in the history, lore and culture of East Asia and the US Navy in the era of the Great White Fleet. His experience as a former Navy SEAL allows him to write credibly about revolutionary warfare, seamanship,the intersection between the military, intelligence and diplomatic communities and all matters maritime. he also gives us a glimpse of what wreck diving must've been like in a Mark V suit. To his credit, Crossland gives us understated combat and fighting sequences which makes the book all the more believable. I have a couple of quibbles, but in order to prevent spoilers, I'll stay mum. Great book about the Golden Age of the US Navy. I'm looking forward to a sequel.
2 people found this helpful
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Charles L. Chosewood
5.0 out of 5 stars Jade Rooster
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2008
Verified Purchase
Great Story with much early 1900's U.S. Navy in Pacific during early 1900's.
Also very good insight into Japan and Korea during the same period. All in all a GREAT read!

Charles Chosewood
Darien Georgia
2 people found this helpful
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PBackWriter
5.0 out of 5 stars If Patrick O'Brian Read More Noir...
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2007
If Patrick O'Brian Read More Noir...

Jade Rooster
By R.L. Crossland
Reviewed by Chris Knopf

There are worse things than being compared to Patrick O'Brian. And that's good news for R.L.Crossland, because comparisons between his historical naval thriller/crime story and the tales of O'Brian's Captain Aubrey are inevitable.
Both share an almost hypnotic evocation of the past, with rich descriptive detail and an encyclopedic command of nautical terminology and the vernacular of the times.
Where they begin to part company are the times themselves - for Crossland, it's early 20th century Asia, in particular Japanese-occupied Korea. A time that most readers, even lovers of exotic sea yarns, will find unfamiliar. Crossland's style, like O'Brian's, effectively captures the mood of this extremely alien environment, signaling from the first pages of the book that this ain't Kansas, Toto. So get ready for something completely different.
The other crucial distinction is that Jade Rooster is at heart an intricate murder mystery, complete with a self-possessed amateur sleuth in the form of Petty Officer Third Class Hobson of the U.S. Navy, a full complement of picaresque characters of questionable morality and several very nasty villains.
The triggering event is the disappearance of the merchant ship Jade Rooster, on a seemingly routine voyage from California by way of Hawaii. Not insignificantly, a tender from the freighter, a whaleboat, has been discovered aimless and abandoned with a cargo on board you could reasonably describe as gruesome (the behavior of some of our current jihadi terrorists come to mind, which should give you the drift).
Hobson's parents were missionaries who raised him in the Far East. Fluent in Japanese and Korean, as well as the hard ways of a seaman's life, he's the ideal choice of the Navy to assist the civilian investigation of this heinous crime on the high seas.
For better or worse, he's also a man of independent thought and resourcefulness, temperamentally incapable of towing the party line, be it military or civilian.
The story moves quickly across geographical and cultural boundaries, landing the reader in occupied Korea, a land chafing under Japanese domination. Hobson's own internal conflicts are ignited by his search for the missing vessel, and a brief encounter with a beautiful, and dangerously free thinking Korean beauty from his past.
Along the way, Hobson is swept up in the revolutionary intrigues of defiant Koreans, the magical mysteries of native shamans, the venality of merchants local and global and the underlying geo-political tensions between East and West that will ultimately erupt into global war.
Though clearly an aside, one of the most entertaining segments of the book is an honor race between a rowboat of Hobson's Pluto, a humble collier, and that of the grand warship Baltimore. Hobson has been given the task of recruiting and training the Pluto crew, and the ensuing contest is both an engaging interlude and an opportunity to see more deeply into Hobson's essential nature.
This is a book for careful readers accustomed to complex plots and non-linear narrative styles. And for lovers of military adventures and good old-fashioned detective stories. If you fit into any of those categories, Jade Rooster is a feast.
9 people found this helpful
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