adult nonfiction; military history. well-told narrative of the events leading up to and the Cold War secrets surrounding the sinking of the USS Scorpion. ( )

I thought this book was very well researched. I had no idea that the time frame was also associated with the Pueblo and John Walker..... Do I believe that our government would hide the truth from the families of these sailors and the nation? Yes, I do. ( )

This book was as well documented as the author's other book, Red Star Rogue, (K-120) which sank when a fail-safe system went into play as the ship tried to launch a nuke at Pearl Harbor. The Russians, not knowing about the fail safe believed for a long time that she was sunk by the US. The sinking of the Scorpion was a pay-back. What is amazing is that both the US and Russia agreed to keep the events secret to avoid an all-out war. The book concludes with 37 pages of the authors documents, interviews and sources.

When I picked this book as one of my challenge reads I was not aware that it was so tightly connected to Red Star Rogue, one of my other reads. Reading the two of them so close together really helped make the situation much clearer.

Sewell writes military (naval) history very well. ( )

I remember the loss of the Thresher and the Scorpion. And I remember that the Navy said both sank accidentally. The author of this book says the USSR baited the Scorpion into a kill box and torpedoed it. And that could be so. My quibble is that this book is written in such a way that the casual reader will think it's the official word, not one writer's opinion. ( )