When I read the first five pages I knew I was in trouble. The writing throughout the book was very flat. Keeping track of all the characters was a monumental feat that left you wondering WHY they were actually written into this novel. About the only completely "fleshed" out character was Scott - The main character's lover who happened to be a Baseball athlete. Sprinkled adorations of this character created many stalls to the story line that I began to NOT care for Tom or Scott. I also found myself cringing at all the location descriptions given to the reader about Chicago. Again, this intricate location detail created a stall to my reading. Hasn't this writer figured out that less is more? Yet, I continued through the 182 pages HOPING to get some real writing style that would drive me to the entertainment value I get when reading a Joseph Hansen novel. How sad I was to see this book finish flat. Time to cleanse my brain with a Dave Brandstetter detective read. Oy....

This has to be one of the dullest mysteries I have read. I felt like the whole book was a mere excuse for the author to express his venom against the Catholic Church. Characters have less personality than dry bread, they are nothing but extreme stereotypes with name labels. The events are almost non-events; things seem to happen but no real progress is made. When the murderer is finally revealed, a reader couldn't care less because it is difficult to remember who is who! And the writing style - after a while, I began to wonder if it was that flat and mundane on purpose!

I liked one thing about this book, though. My copy was only 182 pages long.

I knew this book had to be good when I read the two reviews prior to mine on amazon.com. As a member of the gay community and a recovering Roman Catholic (who thoroughly enjoys the spiritually fulfilling practice of Catholicism I find in the Episcopal Church), not only was I not offended by anything in this book, I actually enjoyed it.

Like the movie "Priest," there are a number of Roman zealots of the "one true church" ilk who are out to write negative reviews of anything that tells it like it is where the Roman Church is concerned whether they've read it or not.

Mr. Zubro is to be congratulated for an engrossing mystery that will surprise its gay and lesbian readers in a positive way, a respectable entry in his "Tom and Scott" series of whodunits.

More power to him!

Having read most everything published by Marryat, all of the Hornblower series, and everything written by Patrick O'Brian I must say this book was a terrible disappointment. There is no plot to speak of; not even the somewhat unevenly spaced episodes of the early Hornblower books. There is little to no character development; after 450 pages of this 508 page edition I gave up because I still didn't really know who was who (or even care!). There was no real discussion of life aboard ships of the time period, nor any understanding of hardships or life during the time period. All this author was able to do adequately, in my opinion, was act as a fashion critic wherein he discribed, often in unnecessary detail, the various clothing worn by the various individuals who floated like some sort of jettsom throughout his "novel." I cannot, after reading close to 100 novels of this period of life at sea, give a worse recommendation than I give to "Tom Cringle's Log." It truly is not worth the time or money.

The various chapters of this novel were published separately in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine from 1829 to 1833. They were reorganized into chronological order and published in the present book form in 1833. The author was a businessman in Jamaica during the time period of the story, and was familiar with both the area and the era. The book is of some interest to people studying that segment of history. On the down side, the novel (in narrative form) is written in the fashion of that era, and the fashion required by Blackwood's. It goes into excruciating details describing everything the main character observes. The story sometimes drags as Tom Cringle goes from one adventure to another. The main action takes place from roughly 1811, when Cringle was in his early naval career, to the point where he is promoted to commander and returns to England (possibly 1820 or so), and roughly corresponds to the time period when the author lived in Jamaica. The story starts in European waters, but quickly shifts to the West Indies where Cringle deals with Americans, pirates, and slavers. A considerable portion of the account is spent on land.

The real travesty is that reviews like the 1-star above should color people's first impressions of this landmark book. Unlike O'Brian et al., Scott lived the life and times he wrote about, and his powers of description were superb. Scott's style is a bit dated, but his book does repay the modern reader's attention.