It’s summer, 1965, and the USS Frank Knox, DDR-742, a destroyer, radar picket ship, on its way from Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam to the port of Hong Kong for a much anticipated liberty, runs aground on Pratas Reef, just south of Hainan. A massive salvage operation is put into motion to rescue the ship.
In the meantime, crew members have come across a grisly discovery: the body of C.C. Green, Boatswain’s Mate First Class. He was murdered sometime during the night. Clues are scarce, as is information about C.C. Green, but when his past is revealed almost everyone on the ship becomes a suspect.
Young Signalman Third Class R.J. Davis is on board the destroyer tender, Prairie, in Hong Kong when she is called on to proceed to Pratas Reef and salvage the Frank Knox. R.J. and his shipmates are unhappy about the operation because they, too were looking forward to liberty in Hong Kong. Navy investigator William C. Deavers arrives on the scene and begins his investigation into the murder. He recruits R.J., whom he knows from The Haverfield Incident a year earlier, to assist him with the investigation. Thus, the salvage operation and the murder investigation proceed simultaneously.
R.J. takes us back to Longmont, Colorado, and his leave the year before. He went back to attend the wedding of his good friend, Chuck, and his ex-girlfriend, Renee, but when he renews his friendship with the enigmatic Millicent Brewer, things begin to get complicated in a romantic sort of way.
During the salvage operation and murder investigation, the sailors form new friendships, renew old ones, contend with shipboard animosity when news of the Watts riots is broadcast, and help discover the key to solving the murder. The investigation and salvage operations slowly come to conclusions and we learn the reason for the murder of C.C. Green, at the hand of someone no one would have suspected. R.J. concludes his relationship with Millicent by mail, and sets his sights to a future when, in five months, he is discharged from the Navy.
R.J. learns about salvation, and that it can come in many forms. He learns first hand about the unfairness of life, and how innocent people can become caught up in the vortex of tragedy.
