The Beacon on Kill Devil Hill

In the months following the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, and America's entry into World War II, German U-boats menaced shipping along the east coast of the United States, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Resupplied with weapons, fuel and food by special "Milk Cow" submarines, these sinister U-boats could spend months waiting to ambush their targets. Known to history as Operation Drumbeat, German U-boats sunk over two-million tons of much needed cargo en-route to Great Britain and Murmansk. Some 397 ships of all types were sunk, and nearly 5000 merchant seamen lost their lives. These figures are staggering when compared to the German loses. In the six months it took the United States to organize an effect defense against this U-boat menace in its home waters, only seven U-Boats were sunk, taking with them approximately 302 German sailors, and sparing only forty survivors. In Thomas J. Morrow & James H. Martin's gripping novel, a lone German U-boat is lurking off the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks. Not only is it launching its deadly torpedoes against vital shipping emerging from Chesapeake Bay, like ducks in a shooting gallery, but it is also pin-pointing only those ships carrying the most vital military cargo of weapons and fuel bound for Europe. As the sleepy residents of the sparsely populated off-season communities of the Outer Banks watch the sky glow at night as a result of ships burning at sea, little do they know there are traitors among them. Utilizing the beacon atop the Wright Brothers Monument at Kill Devil Hill, a small conspirator group of traitors are sending the U-boat the vital intelligence it needs to continue its string of uncanny accurate sinkings. Who are they, and what would motivate members of a close-knit seasonal community to commit such an act of treason? The authors develop characters that we have all known at sometime in our life. The protagonist is young R.W. Scoggins, an amiable home-spun sheriff's deputy who is raising his daughter alone after his wife had run off a few years prior. Aside from making his usual rounds with his trusted Native-American deputy George Dawkins, chowing down at Bessie's Cafe, or ensuring the lubricated patrons of Rags Truscott's Nags Head Casino behaved themselves on Saturday night, duty on the Outer Banks was quiet. As the number of ships sunk offshore raised concern, Scoggins began feeling the pressure as U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and even the FBI began to converge on the sleepy community. Along the way, Scoggins develops an instant attraction to Clare Belle Charboneau, a pretty, outgoing young waitress who arrives in town fleeing her past. At the same time Scoggins spars with and tolerates the local Post Mistress Jenny, a local gossip who has an uncanny ability to come into sensitive information not even the authorities are aware of. When a young German sailor defects from the culprit submarine offshore, Scoggins takes him under his wing and gets him a job rather tha