by Ralph Dennis
At 7:30 o’clock this morning, trucks began the job of loading the cases into which had been packed the valuables. Before 11 a.m., the cases were on the waterfront.
Harbor police stopped all traffic along the waterfront where the ship was docked, near Pie IX Boulevard, and requested passes from anyone attempting to get into the marked-off area.
Newspapermen were refused permission to approach the ship as the Canadian Pacific Railway Express trucks unloaded the precious cargo on the east-end dock this morning. Naval authorities said the work being done was of a confidential nature and that they did not want “publicity” on the shipment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND THIS BOOK
The original version of this novel, entitled MacTaggart’s War, was published in hardcover in 1979 and was Ralph Dennis’ final, published work. It failed to reached the wide audience that he and his publisher had hoped for. This new edition is a substantial revision of the original manuscript. Several scenes and chapters were deleted, while others were moved to earlier or later in the narrative, to improve pacing, sharpen characters, and heighten suspense. The editing was done by Lee Goldberg, a New York Times bestselling author, who has acquired all of the rights to Dennis’ novels, published and unpublished, from his estate.
Ralph Dennis was born in 1931 in Sumter, South Carolina, and received a masters degree from University of North Carolina, where he later taught film and television writing after serving a stint in the Navy. He is perhaps best known as the author of the twelve novels in the Hardman series. At the time of his death in 1988, he was working at a bookstore in Atlanta and had a file cabinet full of unpublished novels.
Brash Books will be releasing the entire Hardman series, his two other published novels, and his long-lost manuscripts.