A historical novel dramatizes the remarkable life of an American Navy hero.

Charles “Gunner” Morgan grows up in New Orleans in the 1870s in a happy Roman Catholic family. He is infused with an “early love of the sea.” Fleeing from dire financial constraints, Gunner joins the Navy in 1882 at the age of 17. His inauspicious start—he’s a third-class apprentice seaman aboard the USS Kearsarge—doesn’t stop Gunner from becoming a nationally recognized hero. After the USS Maine sinks in Havana Harbor, he leads a diving expedition to determine the cause of its demise. When his report implicates the Spanish, he earns the moniker “The Man Who Started the Spanish-American War.” For his heroic actions during the conflict, he’s recommended by powerful political figures—including Vice President Theodore Roosevelt—to be promoted to the rank of officer, unheard of at the time for an enlisted man. Charles Morgan, Gunner’s admiring grandson, and Hillman thoroughly chronicle the hero’s astonishingly eventful life, one marked by a surfeit of both patriotism and adventure. Gunner secretly helps the Japanese navy during the Russo-Japanese War and becomes so renowned for his expertise he earns the title “The Man Behind the Gun.” In addition, the authors document Gunner’s post-military life, also impressively dramatic—he marries Vivian Warren, the daughter of Jerry Warren, a wildly successful businessman known as the “Sugar King of Havana,” and becomes an accomplished entrepreneur in his own right. The authors’ research is admirably scrupulous, though their love of the subject sometimes translates into fawning esteem, if not outright hagiography. Unfortunately, the book’s prose style is almost studiously unliterary—although it is consistently free of interpretive ambiguity. Nevertheless, a life as intriguing as Gunner’s needs little poetical embellishment, and this remains a captivating story.

An impeccably researched and engaging tale of an authentic war hero.