COLD IS THE SEA

An atomic-submarine suspenser with a James Bond climax of graphic believability. Beach (Run Silent, Run Deep) commanded the new nuclear submarine Triton when she went around the world submerged in 1960, and in his new novel we are back in the early Sixties: the nuclear sub Cushing has been sent into the Arctic Ocean to test the possibility of firing missiles through the polar icecap. After finding a fairly thin ice layer and breaking through it, the Cushing is abruptly scraped by a passing Soviet sub at full speed and damaged beyond use. Captain Edward Richardson sets forth with the reclamation submarine Proteus to rescue the stranded Cushing. This takes weeks, of course, and during the towing procedure they are attacked by the Soviet sub once more. This time an under-the-ice torpedo duel results in the Cushing being sunk, as is the enemy sub. The damaged Proteus finds that it must surface directly into a gigantic Soviet Arctic missile base built on an ice island, and then the white-hot finale begins. Enriched with interludes dramatizing the plight of the wives back home (one of whom is a spoiling backbiter), this is top-flight undersea adventure from a seasoned navigator.