In pre-World War II New York young Anna
Kerrigan accompanies her father, Eddie, to a rendezvous on Manhattan Beach with
Dexter Styles. It is around these three characters that the novel unfolds over
a decade or so.
It is mainly Anna who takes centre stage later,
during the war years, by which time Eddie Kerrigan is long gone and she finds
herself moving in circles that bring her back into anonymous contact with the
Dexter Styles. He, she now realises, is heavily involved in racketeering, which
throws new light on her father’s disappearance.
But meanwhile there is a war to be won and
Anna, bored by the clerical work assigned her in the naval dockyard, wants to
join the trainee divers she sees from her office window. Her battle for
acceptance in such an exclusively male role, her ambiguous relationship with
Dexter Styles, and the mystery of her father’s absence are weaved together in a
context rich with period detail.
The plotline and modern historical setting
both engage and there are sufficient twists, turns and peril to maintain
interest to the end. The heroine is vulnerable but determined and her outcome
matters; the fates of the two men are harder to care about.
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