Keith Warren Lloyd. Cape Hatteras: A Novel. New York: iUniverse, 2008.

It’s common to think that the battle for the seas during World War II took place in distant locales like the South Pacific and the North Atlantic, but our own Outer Banks was the site of a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between American merchant and military vessels and German U-boats.  In this novel, the young commander of a U-boat makes it ashore after his boat sinks off Cape Hatteras.

Wolf Krugar is no gun-ho Nazi, but he serves loyally to uphold his class traditions and to protect his wife and daughter.  After his U-boat is destroyed by an American attack, Krugar clings to the debris of a tanker that he had earlier torpedoed.  He drifts on to Hatteras Island.  Harnessing his remaining strength, he walks to a remote cottage, home of Anne MacPherson, a local woman who has returned to the island to heal from the death of her young husband, who died in the Pacific Theater.  It is the classic setup for a tale of unexpected romance, but this novel is more sophisticated than that.  The reader is treated to a story of two damaged individuals who stay true to themselves while recognizing the humanity in the other.  The scenes with Kurt and Anne are interspersed with ones that show the local sheriff and military authorities closing in on Kurt.  These scenes ground the drama between Kurt and Anne in the larger conflict that includes the need to keep supplies flowing to Europe and the possibility of spies and double agents on each side of the conflict.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Dare, Lloyd, Keith Warren

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