The Dangerous Shore: How a Motley Crew of Scientists, Mobsters, Double Agents, Retirees, Volunteer Pilots (and a Boy Scout) Stopped the Invasion of America

In this unfocused account, historian Vladic (Indianapolis) rummages through a grab bag of subjects related to continental America’s coastal defenses during WWII. They include the German U-boats that wrought havoc on U.S. freighters during the war’s early years; the Coast Guard and civilian pilots who mounted anti-U-boat patrols; Joe Desch, an electrical engineer in Ohio who designed the computers that enabled the Navy to track U-boats; mobsters Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, who recruited criminal underlings on the New York waterfront to guard against sabotage by German spies; Countess Grace Buchanan-Dineen, a double agent who hosted parties for Nazi spies at her Detroit apartment; George Dasch, a German saboteur who turned himself in to the FBI; Japanese submarines that fired a few shells at the Oregon coast, to little effect; and, for good measure, the German V-2 rocket program. Vladic tells these stories in colorful, two-fisted prose that sounds sometimes like a newsreel (“From the shores of Long Island to the plains of Nebraska... the nation is mobilizing, driven by a fierce determination to fight”), and often like an airport thriller (“ ‘Son of a bitch!’ Frank Raven slams his fists on his desk, knocking over a stack of papers”). This has its charms, but readers will be left adrift in the sea of subplots. (Mar.)