The summer of 64—the height of the Cold War! You will gain a new respect (or frightening concern) for the military component of our foreign policy. Marine captain Roger Yahnke is assigned as a nuclear weapons delivery pilot aboard a US supercarrier. He is assigned his own aircraft, his own bomb, and his own target—an Eastern Bloc city that he will vaporize should the Russians launch one ballistic missile westward (or someone somewhere think they did). Standby for compelling (some mirthful, some tragic―all engaging) shipboard events. But that’s nothing compared to what happens when he’s ashore!
In each exciting port of call—though certainly not God-gifted with the flair it should take, he somehow cobbles the élan to meet newer, grander, and more exciting people; is invited to their secret haunts and becomes involved in scenarios he never dreamt existed. From the bronzed and oiled hedonism of the Cote d’Azur beaches, to bargaining with the KGB in an abandoned house in Bulgaria; from a jail cell in Istanbul where he spends the night with an international film star, to a sunny veranda on the island of Rhodes where he lunches with an exiled king, The French Riviera, Leo, June, and Big Trouble recounts Roger’s baptism to another world and his desperate struggle with his own crippling dilemma. The cruise ends, but not soon enough. Roger has gotten the scent and is forever altered.
Although the value of the series could well rest on the merits of the unnerving escapades, exciting venues, and intriguing characters, above all and throughout it is a compelling tale of one man’s battle with an embarrassing shortcoming; an honest (and ultimately shocking) account of a uniquely driven life.
