"A Prerogative"
A former commanding officer finds himself powerless when he confronts a woman about to leap
from a bridge.
“ "'An exquisite piece of writing…an utterly absorbing story.”
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
"Castoffs"
A heroic young woman discovers the deep tragedy of trafficking.
"The world of these stories surges up. It plummets down. It searches—horizon to horizon.
The prose is sometimes becalmed. Sometimes raging. This is a collection to learn from."
David Kranes - Playwright and Novelist
"Efendim"
A commanding officer, a negotiator, an interpreter and a hostage confront the inevitability of
death on a lawless sea.
These powerful, poignant stories of men and women at sea will remain in your memory like a long-ago
sunset glimpsed from a destroyer’s bridge. Echoes of Joseph Conrad and Patrick O’Brian fill this
slender volume of gorgeous sea tales — a triumph!
Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander
of NATO (2009-2013) and author of
Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans
"Personal Effects"
The inventory of dead sailor’s locker haunts a young officer’s first hours on board and the life of his ship.
"Rolf's abiding compassion for flawed humanity buoys each linked story up into a place of
unexpected mystery and insight. Darkly strange, strangely moving."
Goldie Goldbloom - Novelist and acclaimed author of Paperback Shoe
"The Mouse"
A routine task at a Pentagon Desk triggers an officer's memory of a fatal error performed out of a
flawed sense of duty.
"These closely, sometimes surprisingly related stories, told without a trace of sentimentality or
overstated drama, about events ranging from the comic to the tragic, feel true-- not in the way of
journalism or nonfiction, but in the way that fiction can express the complex reality of
human experience, in the way something as simple as the sight of a mouse can trigger a rush of
memory, and take on significance years later. Ultimately, this is a book about connections and
contemplation, and while it focuses on people who happen to serve in the U.S. Navy,
its true subject is life."
Pete Turchi - Novelist