C. Michael Hiam

“An utterly original and gripping story of murder on the high seas.” — Sebastian Junger From an author praised by the Wall Street Journal for his “eye for a good story” comes an account of Herbert Fuller tragedy of 1896, a tragedy that occurred on the high seas and one involving the senseless slaughter of three of the twelve souls on board. Stunned by this act of random violence, and in sure knowledge that one or more of their own was the murderer, the living turn the vessel to shore, 750 miles distant. In the nightmarish days and nights of suspense that follow, first one and then another of the remaining nine is seized by others as the culprit. Upon reaching port, however, all are under suspicion—until the man most likely to have committed the act is, for reasons having to do with race, exonerated and the man most likely to be innocent, prosecuted. At the center of this gripping and gruesome story is the first mate Thomas Bram, whose subsequent murder trials became as widely followed by the press and public as was the famous trial of Lizzie Borden just a few years before. Unlike the Borden case, remembered today in books, movies, and children’s rhymes, the Bram case was almost lost to the collective memory. Fortunately, C. Michael Hiam, in the manner of Erik Larson, now brings it to life.

It was an enigma of the Vietnam War: American troops kept killing the Viet Cong-and being killed in the process-and yet their ranks continued to grow. When CIA analyst Sam Adams uncovered documents suggesting a Viet Cong army more than twice as large as previously reckoned, another war erupted, this time within the ranks of America's intelligence community. Although originally clandestine, this conflict involving the highest levels of the U.S. government burst into public view during the acrimonious lawsuit Westmoreland v. CBS. The central issue in the suit, as in the war itself, was the calamitous failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to ascertain the strength of the Viet Cong and get that information to troops in a timely fashion. The legacy of this failure-whether caused by institutional inertia, misguided politics, or individual hubris-haunts our nation. In the era of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden, Sam Adams' tireless crusade for "honest intelligence" resonates strongly today.