Review
Author: Shawn Corridan and Gary Waid
Reviewed by: SHA
Issue: March 2017
Goliath is an excellent thriller, and one which will take readers into new territory. The Russian ship Bennkah (Russian for Goliath), newly commissioned in Vladivostock, and the largest oil tanker ever built, is on its maiden voyage in the Bering Sea. The ship is on a secret mission known only by the captain. This behemoth is some five football fields long and as wide as the Rose Bowl. Early in the voyage, what appears at first to be a minor problem in the engine room occurs, but a fire ensues and soon the blaze is out of control and threatening the ship. Meanwhile, some 200 miles to the east in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, the beat-up, salvage ship Skeleton, captained by good-guy (but struggling financially), Sonny Wade, hears the "Mayday call" from Bennekah, which has now run aground. Wade gathers his rag-tag crew, fights off his creditors, and speeds toward the grounded ship to be first on the scene, hoping this will be the break he needs to save his failing business. There is competition, however, as the cutthroat Dal Sharpe, owner of the largest, most successful, and most modern salvage operations in Alaska, is also on the way. The race to the Bennekah makes for exciting reading to say nothing about the following efforts to raise the ship in the face of heavy seas, the duplicity of Sharpe, and the inherent danger to prevent a disastrous oil spill and nuclear contamination. Authors Corridan and Wald, in their first novel, demonstrate great knowledge of the sea and things nautical in a great adventure read which races to a satisfactory conclusion.