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Author: Frank Ridgley
ISBN: 1598006436
Marine Biologist and former U.S. Merchant Marine Officer, Frank Ridgley, turns his hand to writing fiction with his debut novel, Den Helder. This is a novel focusing on the universal topic in our lives, what would I do without the person I love in my life or the meaning of life without the person I love?
Our story unfolds when our principle character, Antonio (Tony) Kirkland, who recently was accredited as a merchant marine, accepts his first assignment from the Crockett Marine Survey Inc- a company that provides ocean-mapping data to petroleum companies. Tony’s first posting will be as a standing deck officer on one of the company’s ships for a period of three months. He will initially travel to England, where the ship is in dry dock and eventually to Den Helder which is off the coast of Holland in the North Sea.
Tony is saddened, as he will be leaving his young wife and high-school sweetheart, Elaine, however, both have agreed to his ten year plan. Tony believes that he will be able to save enough money as a merchant marine to enable him to purchase land in Missouri, build a home and become a high school biology teacher once he finishes his ten years at sea.
It is in Den Helder where Tony is smitten with the beautiful Anika Dekker. Anika is a recent business graduate from the University of Amsterdam and she is working as a barmaid in her hometown of Den Helder waiting for the right career opportunity.
Anika, however, is aware that Tony is married and she tells him that their relationship is over before they ever met. Moreover, she tells him “I am but an imaginary angel in this dark and foreign dream you are experiencing. In just a little over a month, you will awaken and be in the arms of your wife. What you are feeling for me will vanish. Your life will return to normal." Tony refuses to accept this explanation and insists his feelings are authentic. Anika describes these feelings as being alive only because of the separation from his wife and the dangers experienced in the high seas.
Tony’s life takes an unexpected tragic turn when his wife Elaine is accidentally killed in an auto accident. For sixteen years, Tony agonizes over the death of his wife and his long lost love for Anika. Was it possible to love more than one person?
One day upon meeting an elderly and somewhat mysterious neighbor, Levi Gabor, Tony is advised that the hole in his heart can only be filled by a woman. He is further counseled that he must not accept defeat and he should return to Holland to search out Anika. She may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him or perhaps she may guide him to the next level. As Gabor states: “Your memories often center on one person…in one place. The person is Anika and the place is Den Helder!"
This is a novel that will keep casual readers on board until the end however it does have its shortcomings. Ridgley has done a fair job of balancing the description of Tony’s dangerous life at sea with his inner conflicts and predicaments. However, readers may feel short changed with some of the minor characters as well as Tony’s relationships with various female companions whom he meets after Elaine’s fatal accident.
I felt these characters and particularly the women seem to “scurry by" or “traipse off" without knowing why there never seemed to be the right chemistry between them and Tony. I also would like to have seen a more profound development of Tony’s relationship with his wife Elaine and how this was similar or different than the one he experienced with Anika.
Nonetheless, Den Helder still manages to be a compelling read and one that will keeping you thinking about it long after you have put it down.
The above review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Retired Title Attorney: Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are Norm Goldman's Reviews
To read Norm's Interview with Frank Ridgley CLICK HERE
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