Authors C - Cap
Cable, George Washington (1844-1925)
Gideon's Band : a tale of the Mississippi. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. 500 pages
Based on the author's experiences on the Mississippi River. Intriguing rival steamboat owners, and the cholera epidemics of the late 1840s.
Cahun, Léon [David] (1841-1900)
The Adventures of Captain Mago; or, a Phœnician expedition, B.C. 1000. Sampson Low, 1876. 344 pages
Translation of Aventures du capitaine Magon, ou Une exploration phénicienne mille ans avant l'ère chrétienne
Caidin, Martin (1927-1997)
The Last Fathom. Meredith, 1967. 312 pages
Russians plant doomsday bomb in middle of Atlantic to destroy America and Europe, and secret US sub, controlled by only two men, tries to stop it.
Aquarius Mission. Bantam, 1978. 312 pages
US submarine investigates the disappearance of two nuclear subs, discovers a strange world miles deep.
Caillou, Alan
Dead Sea Submarine. Bee-Line, 1971. 188 pages
Arabs are moving a submarine across the desert to the Dead Sea, and commandos are sent to stop it.
Calahan, H. A. [Harold Augustin] (1889-1965)
Back to Treasure Island. Vanguard, 1935. 246 pages
While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate's fortune
Calin, Harold
Black Cargo. Lander, 1969. 206 pages
Sexual tension aboard ship during the darkest days of the slave trade.
Slave Ship. Leisure, 1977. 240 pages
Young idealist from New England ships out on a slaver, learns about the evil trade first hand.
Callison, Brian (1934- )
A Flock of Ships. Putnam, 1970. 255 pages
Deals with the crew of a British merchantman in WW II in the South Atlantic. The ship is carrying new radio codes to other merchant ships, and the Germans want them. U-boats stage a number of distant pyrotechnic displays which spook the freighter's crew, driving them to anchor in the lagoon of a Tristan da Cunha-like island. there they fight it out with the subs, there being no survivors. The story is told as the journal of the freighter's first mate, which is discovered aboard the still-anchored ship by an RN survey ship in the mid-1960's.
A Plague of Sailors. Putman, 1971. 251 pages
Following an earthquake in Israel, an Arab dissident group steals a vial of anthrax bacillus, and attempts to smuggle it into Israel aboard an Egyptian relief ship. British naval special forces that operate out of a dummy steamship line set out to foil the plot. Set approximately 1971-72.
Dawn Attack. Putman, 1972. 287 pages
Fictional account of a British Commando raid on a Norwegian port during WW II, based on a number of actual raids.
A Web of Salvage. Putman, 1973. 190 pages
Battered old salvage tug TACTICIAN is on her final voyage home when a mayday call during a force 10 storm leads them into a dangerous mystery.
A Ship is Dying. Dutton, 1976. 222 pages
The last minutes of a sinking ship, very evocative and very "real-time", and to set it apart from other disaster novels it's not five hundred pages long and is illuminated by the hell-red glow of Callisons wit. Watch out for the parrot!
An Act of War. Dutton, 1977. 206 pages
U.K. title: A Frenzy of Merchantmen. The Soviet Navy in the 1980s blockades the Baltic Sea to British shipping. In retaliation, a Royal Navy ship provokes the Soviets into an act of war. Soon nukes and Nazis are flying around.
The Judas Ship. Dutton, 1978. 192 pages
Merchantman attacked and damaged by German surface raider seeks the shelter of a narrow river harbor in Brazil for repairs, only to discover that the Raider is moored up-river of the ship, repairing damage done to it by the merchantman. The Germans cannot attack the merchantman while it is in the river because the raider would be trapped if the merchantman sank in the channel.<
The Auriga Madness. Collins, 1980. 223 pages
A terrible disease drives a ship's crew mad with disasterous results.
The Sextant. Collins, 1981. 252 pages
In 1941 the MV HIGHLANDER was torpedoed and sunk with all hands. In 1981 the captain's sextant is discovered as part of a thief's loot. The captain's son sets off to find out what really happened forty years ago. This leads him to a small community (in N Scotland?) where the other loot was from. Although the community is close-mouthed, he slowly comes to discovered what happened to his father.
Spearfish. Collins, 1983. 222 pages
Captain Crofts is called on to board and capture a ship full of present-day mercenaries.
The Bone Collectors : a novel of the Atlantic Convoys. Collins, 1984. 253 pages
The name given by U-Boat crews to the ships assigned to pick up seamen who had abandoned ship. It is a novel of ordinary Merchant Navy convoy men seen through the eyes of the chief officer of the OLYMPIAN, one of the Bone Collectors.
A Thunder of Crude. Collins, 1986. 320 pages
The Calauria is a floating powder keg. Add an inquisitive lady reporter and a group of teenagers out to make trouble and the plot thickens.
The Trojan Hearse. Collins, 1990. 224 pages
WW II action as the Germans plot to revenge the St. Nazaire raid. U-boat Captain Reitz gets do do the honours. The plot is a bit stretched but this is more than made up for by Callisons writing -and the pace at which it is forced on.
Ferry Down. HarperCollins, 1998. 311 pages
Passengers on the Orion Venturer have no idea that their ferry has been converted from a casino ship. Vital corners have been cut, and none of her multinational crew know the ship well enough to be of any use in an emergency. It would take one act of folly to initiate a tragedy.
The Stollenberg Legacy. HarperCollins, 2000. 320 pages
At the end of world War II, Nazi war treasure was hidden by British soldiers within the structures of a Russian ship. Fifty years later, the poeple who hid the treasure are trying to recover it, leaving behind them a trail of murders.
Edward Trapp series:
Trapp's War. Dutton, 1974. 192 pages
Edward Trapp, smuggler and captain of the rust bucket CHARON, the only ship able to sneak in and out through the German blockade of Malta, is called back to active service in the RN, and inveigled into helping relieve the siege of Tobruk during the African campaign in WW II.
Trapp's Peace. Collins, 1980. 189 pages
The sequel to Trapp's War. Further adventures of Captain Trapp and his merry men. After smuggling illegal immigrants across the English Channel, Trapp gets involved in nefarious activites in the Mediterranean. Was he really being paid to ship used construction equipment from Port Said to Malaga? Or was he expected to scuttle it en route?
Trapp and World War Three. Collins, 1988. 271 pages
Trapp returns to muddle through another adventure with thieves, psychopaths, armies, navies, and air forces of several nations all adding to the fireworks. Set in the 1980s.
Crocodile Trapp. HarperCollins, 1993. 224 pages
Trapp and his team must be getting a little long in the tooth by now, considering that Trapp was supposed to be an RN Midshipman in WW I. Whatever, this time they are involved in the usual illegal, dangerous cross and double cross, this time it involves a Chinese triad, mad professors, crocodiles, buried treasure and the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
Trapp's Secret War. Severn House, 2008. 220 pages
1943. World War Two. A Russian convoy fights its violent, wreckage-strewn course across the Arctic Circle towards Murmansk. Only one ship survives the coffin ship Charon and her complement of misfits, captained by the buccaneering Edward Trapp: professional scoundrel, blackguard without merit. The Charon staggers from one sub-zero crisis to the next in the captains pursuit of ignominy and golden cargo, to the enduring embarrassment of the British and United States Navies.
Calvin, Jack (1901-1985)
Square-Rigged. Little, Brown, 1929. 334 pages
A futile struggle to save The Queen of Asia marks the end of the era of clipper ships
Fisherman 28. Little, Brown, 1930. 325 pages
Cameron, Ian (1924-2018) [Pseud. Donald G. Payne]
The Midnight Sea. Hutchinson, 1958. 200 pages
The aircraft carrier HMS VIPER is escorting a convoy to Russia and has to fight the weather and the Germans all the way. The Captain's son joins the ship off Scotland, as batsman (officer in giving directions to aircraft pilots by means of hand-held "bats"). The story matter-of-factly unfolds. The characters do not seem to be fleshed out, the loss of a ship or aircraft takes few words. In spite of this by the end of the book you have the whole picture of the sea war as fought by the Royal Navy and in this particular case the Fleet Air Arm in those inhospitable latitudes. Strangely enough the enormous effort and sacrifice made by the convoy to reach Russia and by the Germans to prevent them doing so is convincingly demonstrated.
The White Ship. Scribner, 1975. 192 pages
A Spanish treasure ship goes aground in the South Shetland Islands in 1818. In 1974 an expedition searching for golden seals finds the treasure ship, and unquiet ghosts that give them more then they bargained for.
Cameron, J. D. [Pseud. Michael Jahn] (1943- ) and David Robbins (1950- )]
Omega Sub Series
Omega Sub. Avon, 1991. 249 pages
On top secret manuevers beneath the polar ice cap, the USS LIBERATOR surfaces to find the Earth in flames from a global thermonuclear war -- a war so complete that they do not know what started it. The crew then begins seeking out survivors to forge a new future.
Omega Sub: Command Decision. Avon, 1991. 246 pages
LIBERATOR comes across a Japanese trawler fleet that has survived the war, but had its crew destroyed after the shooting stopped.
Omega Sub: City of Fear. Avon, 1991. 189 pages
"When you think of a post- apocalyptic setting you think, 'I've seen it before.' But, this book takes that setting and totaly refreshes it. After a few pages you find yourself wondering what's around the next corner and holding your breath as you flip the page. Will it be the irradiated freak white shirts who are spreading like an infection across the radioactive remains of the earth, or will it be an entire island mysteriously desserted by all it's inhabitants?"
Omega Sub: Blood Tide. Avon, 1991. 219 pages
LIBERATOR cruises the South Pacific saving survivors of the nuclear war from a lunatic and an army of sadistic killers, but bad guys kidnap the captain and demand the sub for ransom.
Omega Sub: Death Dive. Avon, 1992. 214 pages
On the East Coast of America, the LIBERATOR sails into a savage zombie Hell.
Omega Sub: Raven Rising. Avon, 1992. 214 pages
Hidden in an underground fortress, the insane U.S. president and his elite corps of stormtroopers, survivors of the nuclear holocaust that has left the world in ruins, make plans to enslave what remains of the human race.
Cameron, Lou (1924-2010)
The Amphorae Pirates. Random House, 1970. 211 pages
Diving for ancient treasures off Greece.
Cameron, Verney Lovett (1844-1894)
The Cruise of the "Black Prince" Privateer. Chatto and Windus, 1886. 341 pages
Campbell, Broos
Matty Graves Series
No Quarter. McBooks, 2006. 261 pages
In 1799, the young U.S. Navy faces France in an undeclared Quasi-War for the Caribbean. Matty Graves is caught up in escalating violence as he serves aboard the Rattle-Snake under his drunken cousin, Billy.
The War of Knives. McBooks, 2007. 309 pages
When Matty Graves, acting lieutenant in the newly formed U.S. Navy, agrees to become a spy in the French colony of Saint-Dómingue, he plunges headlong into a brutal world of betrayal and double-cross beyond anything he’s ever known. At first the bloody civil war between former slaves and their mixed-race overseers simply offers a way to test himself and a means to purge his guilt over the death of his former captain.
Peter Wicked. McBooks, 2008. 311 pages
Navy Lieutenant Matty Graves is still recovering from his ordeal during the slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Dómingue when he is ordered to Washington to answer questions about the death of his former captain. On home soil he must deal with the mystery and shame surrounding his birth, as well as the attractions of his best friend's sister. But when he's offered a command of his own, he seizes the opportunity to make a name and fortune for himself - even if it means destroying those closest to him.
Campbell, John T.
Raid on Truman. Lyfore, 1991. 290 pages
Crew of nuclear carrier is knocked out by nerve gas and North Korean troops take it over. Small bunch of crew survives, and tries to free ship.
Sub Zero. Avon, 1996. 340 pages
When a heavily armed assault team is dispatched from North Korea and prepares to grab the United States's most devastating military secrets, an undertrained, outgunned band of servicemen, scientists, and civilians becomes the nation's only hope.
Canning, Victor (1911-1986)
The House of the Seven Flies. M.S. Mill, 1952. 220 pages
Danger and intrigue in Netherlands waters on a yacht
Capes, Bernard [Edward Joseph] (1854-1918)
Where England Sets Her Feet : a Romance. W. Collins, 1918. 358 pages
Adventure afloat and shore during the 16th century
Capouya, Emile (1925-2005)
In the Sparrow Hills : Stories. Algonquin Press, 1993. 245 pages
"In the Sparrow Hills", "The Other Rogozhin", "A Parenthesis" and "Staring at the Sun" tie into the author's wartime merchant marine experiences.
Capron, Louis Bishop (1891-1971)
The Blue Witch. Holt, 1957. 256 pages
China trade in the 1830s and wreckers along the Florida coast
Caputo, Philip (1941- )
The Voyage. Knopf, 1999. 415 pages
In June 1900, Cyrus Braithwaite, a gruff Yankee granite magnate, orders his three teenage sons to board the family's beloved schooner, sail away from their imposing Maine summer home, and stay away until September. His sole explanation for this sudden expulsion: "It's a new century, boys." Puzzled, abashed, but also intrigued by the adventure forced upon them, Nathaniel, Eliot, and Andrew leave behind their privileged WASP childhood and head out to sea--bound, they decide more or less on a whim, for the Florida keys.