Hell and High Water

by John R. McKay

First published 2017

Amazon

4.1(221)

March 1942. George Martin, a young Liverpool telegraphist serving aboard the fictional destroyer HMS Virtuous, is assigned to escort a convoy carrying vital supplies to the Soviet port of Murmansk. The voyage brings the ship into Arctic waters threatened by German aircraft, U-boats and surface forces, while George and his shipmates discover that cold, ice and violent seas can be as dangerous as enemy attack.

When George and his friend Wally Honeyman are cast away in a lifeboat, the naval story narrows into a struggle for survival in extreme weather. The characters and HMS Virtuous are fictional, but McKay draws on the documented conditions of the Arctic Convoys and the experience of escort crews. The novel therefore combines maritime adventure with the historical reality of the Allied supply route to the Soviet Union.