UTMOST FISH!

The title of this novel refers to a British nautical expression meaning ""away all torpedoes""-- or to do a job with peak skill. The job at hand here is to sink the ships of the German Imperial Navy on Lake Tanganyika during World War I. Readers will have quite a problem separating fact from fiction because author McCann uses living people as characters, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, among them. This works well and he is equally adept in bringing board rooms and offices into vivid focus. The main character is a well-drawn naval commander, Ian H.G. Frazer, the grandson of a vice admiral. The old man has been drilling the boy since he was five in naval traditions and now Frazer is 44. His career, however, is blighted at the beginning when, as a sublieutenant, he happened to ram the ship of the admiral of the fleet. Since that affair, Frazer has been a desk jockey and never allowed at sea. Finally, as a deputy personnel director, Frazer chooses himself as the man with the best organizational sense who can clear up the Germans on Lake Tanganyika. He presents himself to Churchill for the post, hops off to the Belgian Congo where he sinks the Germans and becomes a naval hero... A very satisfying story, well-told, or ""Utmost Fish!