Todd Tucker Books In Order

Publication Order of Danny Jabo Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Todd Tucker is a naval officer turned author. During his Navy career, he dedicated himself to a very prestigious program in the nuclear department of the United States Navy and he took that experience into his carrier as a writer. He is the author of the Danny Jabo series of books which follow a Naval officer serving on a variety of ships.

Tucker had a successful college career at Notre Dame University, made even more impressive by the fact that he acquired a full ride to the school. While there he gained an appreciation for history, graduating with a Bachelor’s in the field. That experience would later prove very helpful in his earliest published works, like The Great Starvation Experiment; A book that looked into the starvation experiments that took place back near the end of World War II in an effort to help the starving citizens across the European continent.

It is in his love of history that Todd Tucker gained his admiration for the more glamorous aspects of military life. The United States military has a long and respectable history for the most part, and Todd was quick to join it once he graduated Notre Dame. With degree in hand he volunteered for the Navy’s nuclear power program.

Eventually, in the mid-1990s, Tucker left the navy and returned to his home state of Indiana to pursue his career as a writer. Over the years he has published for many different publications, from newspapers to magazines. He has worked to build up a good collection of works, including both academic and fictional works, like the previously mentioned Starvation Experiment.

Todd Tucker started his fictional endeavors by writing about something that he really knew well, nuclear submarines. His fictional series stars the character of Danny Jabo, a naval lieutenant at the start of his first adventure in Collapse Depth.

Tucker’s writing style is one of complexity, technicality, and fine detail, because all of those are necessary to convey a life aboard a massive submarine. He is able to convey the feelings that arise in this tense environment, and shows how our characters deal with the stress that it presented to them. Danny Jabo feels like a real person in his books, because there is probably a little bit of Todd Tucker showing up in how the character behaves.

Collapse Depth is the first book in the Danny Jabo series. The story introduces us to Danny as a young officer onboard the USS Alabama. The ship is a Trident submarine on its way to Taiwan on a secret mission. However, there is a saboteur on the ship. The crew must react to each of them and act fast in order to avoid catastrophe. Life on board a ship can be extremely stressful, but when equipment fails everything is heightened. Especially when you consider there is no land beneath your feet and there is no escape from the ship.

Danny Jabo returned in Ghost Sub. The story sees another ship, the USS Boise, disappearing off the map. Lieutenant Danny Jabo and the crew of the USS Louisville are then given orders to go and find the ship. The Boise has gone silent and the crew is unresponsive, heading towards Hong Kong. Lt. Tabo and crew will have a daunting technical challenge on their hands.

The career of Danny Jabo continues to improve by the third book, Zulu Five Oscar, as he is now the Executive Officer of a Trident class submarine. He is less involved in some of the ship’s activities and now takes on more of an administrative role. As he adjusts to his new job, the ship is ordered to port so that the Soviets can inspect the nuclear warheads aboard to keep compliance with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). This is quite out of the ordinary for the crew, but it turns out the Soviets are the least of the USS Maine’s problems.

The fourth entry in the book is Covert Duress. Danny Jabo has reached the top and is now the commander of the USS Pittsburgh. Under his command, the ship will operate in some of the world’s most dangerous waters. The story also sees Jabo looking back at the diesel-powered submarines and the heroic World War II captains who commanded them.

One of Todd Tucker’s earlier standalone novels was Shooting a Mammoth. The story sees a very strange thing happening when six wooly mammoths wander to the edge of a small Indiana town called New Porter. A few in town react with wonder while others fear them, but they will all be changed by this experience. Dr. David Wrangel has been tracking the mammoths from their home on the Canadian tundra. He knows that trouble is inevitable for them as they move closer to popular areas. They end up on an abandoned mint field, owned by Jay Huck, where they begin to graze. There are a pair of twins who are eager to kill the mammoths and when the people of New Porter start to get ill, they have more than a few allies willing to join them.

The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved so That Millions Could Live was Tucker’s looking into the story of thirty-six young men who faced down profound, consuming hunger as part of a military experiment. The men were eager to help the country, but were conscientious objectors to World War II. Instead, they volunteered themselves for one of the most unusual experiments in history: a year of systematic starvation. The idea was to find a way to rehabilitate people who had been severely underfed during the war. In order to find out how to do that, they needed to first learn more about starvation and did so by starving the test subjects. The weight loss was to be expected, but the psychological deterioration was less predictable. Only four of the men ended up being expelled for cheating, the rest managed to follow the program which showed their determination and toughness.

One Response to “Todd Tucker”

1. Mark Wheeler: 3 years ago

   I have really enjoyed the Danny Jabo novels. Good stories all. One thing! A service member does not WIN the Medal of Honor or any other medal for bravery. They EARN them. You can EARN a Navy Achievement Medal or a Navy Commendation Medal, but one EARNS a medal for bravery under fire.

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