The Secret Eye

I received this book as a ARC for a review, for which I am truly grateful

This book follows the story of Charlie Brand, a young man who enlisted in the Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor bringing America into WW2.

I will say that If you are a military or WW2 history buff you will probably enjoy this book. Much of the narrative follows Charlie and his experiences in the Navy. Charlie is a Radar operator which at the time was classified military Technology.

The Good
For me personally, I enjoy the what some might term info dumps, not being all that familiar with WW2 military technology, ships and planes I would not have known anything about the types of planes mentioned, their armament or capabilities so for me at least this was a good thing as it helped understand the context of the tech

I enjoyed learning about some of the battles that took place in the pacific during WW2, and the challenges that the U.S. Navy had their battles with the Japanese, this for me at least, provided a new perspective on the naval aspect of WW2 that while I am certainly aware that the navy was involved I never really thought about the war in terms of naval battles, I typically imagined things like dday and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Charlie as a Character was someone I was able to come to care, at least a bit about, within this story. His love interest and family connections certainly made me want to cheer for him to get home.

The bad

Other than charlie, none of the other characters really stood out to me, I just found I did not really care for them all that much. Overall this was a very plot drive story rather than character driven story.

During the battle scenes, much of these moments in the story was focused around Charlie and his operation of the Radar. This often was focused on just reporting Radar data and the back and forth communications between officers on the ships, With the occasional mention of what the fighter pilots were doing on both side.

I certainly understand telling the story from Charlies POV however I would have loved to have more action writing, from others POV during the battle. It just seemed to really lack the intensity and battle drama that would have been occurring at these moments.

I just would have loved to see more character POV, and more battle action from those directly involved in the fighting. It just felt more like reading a battle report than being in a battle itself.

It just would have been so much better to get into the minds, and show me what the soldiers were experience in the heat of battle, show me what is going on around them, on the ships, in the sky.

overall I would say its not a terrible book, I did enjoy it, but would have loved to see so much more that would have made this book so much better.

3 stars because I did enjoy learning more about the Navy role in ww2. I enjoyed Charlie's story, and really overall it is a good story. After reading this book I do want to learn more about WW2 but at the same time it could have been so much more