HELIX

A novel that deals- almost exclusively- with men and machines, and which, in its preoccupation with technical terms, engineering lingo, and Union vernacular is on the whole practically unintelligible to the ordinary reader. This concentrates on Paul Jessup from his licensing by the U. S. Bureau of Marine Inspection & Navigation to his death on a C-1 and the interim of life with those closely allied with him in a small, exacting world. There is the uncertainty of the officers raised in the old wrench-pushing tradition as against the surety of the younger men in their high pressure jobs; there is the respect of the book- wise for the savvy and know-how experts; and Jessup, inexperienced, fails when he takes over the high pressure steam turbines of the Cape arting, goes AWOL, and returning to redeem himself, dies in his last stand of duty. A certain brutal realism, a sensitive feel for machines and ships, this is for a conditioned, mechanically-minded male audience, still curious about specialized accounts of the war on the cargo front.