Wilson, Sloan Ice Brothers: A Novel

Sprawling (some might say bloated) World War 2 sea tale set aboard a U.S. Coast Guard Boston beam trawler (the fictitious ARLUK) on the Greenland Patrol. While Sloan’s opening chapters seem nothing more than an overblown –if that’s possible! – Herman Wouk pastiche (think The Caine Mutiny meets The Winds of War in Arctic waters), once the novel really gets underway Sloan holds his readers’ attention. Of particular merchant marine interest are descriptions of an encounter with the troop and civilian workers transport ship DORCHESTER a year before her tragic sinking. Also of note is the gruesome discovery of a machine-gun riddled lifeboat filled with dead mariners, victims of a German attack on a merchant marine convoy. Much of the novel is devoted to the ARLUK’s ultimately successful effort to locate and destroy a series of east coast Greenland weather stations manned by Germans as well as the supply ships which service the clandestine weather stations.