Dead Reckoning

Ray Michael Corbin

ISBN 10: 1940776066 / ISBN 13: 9781940776064

Published by BAAA Press, 2020

Brand New. Seller Inventory # 37567

Synopsis:

Navy sailor Emmett Haines is having second thoughts. His job on the destroyer Delphy is easy enough and his side hustle fleecing civilians with his much-practiced card skills brings good money to himself and his shipmates. But there has to be more to life than this. Then one day on liberty in San Francisco he meets the free-spirited, enigmatic Ruby -- a woman who seems to understand his game, and who opens up a new world of possibilities. The only catch now is that his ship is due to return to San Diego in the morning, and he's under suspicion after someone steals a wallet from a close friend of his captain -- an act that will have fateful, even fatal, consequences. Inspired by the true story of a major U.S. Navy disaster off the coast of California nearly a century ago -- in which seven ships and nearly two dozen sailors were lost in a single night -- Dead Reckoning imagines a mix of real and fictional officers, civilians, and low-ranking enlisted sailors from their adventures in Prohibition-era San Francisco up through the tragedy and its aftermath. The book brings to vivid life a little-known chapter of history in a tale that is both exhilarating and heartbreaking.

From the Inside Flap: On September 8, 1923, seven ships of the U.S. Navy's Destroyer Squadron 11, led by Commodore Edward H. Watson on board the flagship USS Delphy, bore full speed into a treacherous section of California coastline informally known as Honda Point. Traveling south in single file "follow the leader" formation, the ships were attempting a turn into the Santa Barbara channel at night in heavy fog. They missed by several miles. One after another, in a span of just minutes, the destroyers jammed themselves to the rugged rocks that would be their fate. It was among the worst peacetime disasters in the Navy's history.

Dead Reckoning is a work of fiction inspired by these true events. The book follows the lives and passions of a group of enlisted sailors on liberty as their paths cross with an anxious diplomat recently returned from Japan. When that diplomat turns out to be a friend of their own captain, a series of minor conflicts and animosities builds to sudden tragedy and a night on the water that no man will forget-if they can first find a way to survive.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Dead Reckoning
Publisher: BAAA Press
Publication Date: 2020
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New