Author William Geroux presenting “The Ghost Ships of Archangel”

William Geroux, author of Mathews Men, will be at the Kingston Parish promoting his new book, The Ghost Ships of Archangel. 

The Ghost Ships of Archangel will be published May 14 by Viking /Penguin. It’s a narrative non-fiction account of an Allied convoy in 1942 sailing across the

Arctic, trying to get through the ice and the Germans to deliver a cargo of vital war supplies to the Soviet Union, our tenuous ally. The convoy is hit by an unexpected crisis in an unforgiving place, which inspires acts of courage and sacrifice, and a daring flight into the polar ice field.

The story of convoy PQ-17 and the Ghost Ships is also a chapter in the very short history of America and Russia as allies. Allied convoys delivered precious supplies to Russia. But the Russians wanted more help than convoys at a time when the death toll in the Soviet fight against the Germans was soaring well into the millions — far, far more deaths than America and Britain together would suffer in the entire war. Today the Arctic convoys are all but forgotten in America, but much better remembered in Russia, where they have figured into Russians’ views of the U.S. for generations. PQ-17 has been the subject of a popular Russian historical novel and more recently a TV miniseries.

The Arctic setting was so central to the story of the Ghost Ships – and so unfamiliar to me – that I tried to see as much of the convoy’s route as possible before writing about it. I ended up making two trips to Russia, visiting Archangel, Murmansk and St. Petersburg. I explored the remote bay in Iceland where the convoy first gathered, and the magnificent Norwegian fjords where the Germans waited for PQ-17. I hope The Ghost Ships of Archangel will be as compelling to read as it was to research.

Contact Tom Edwards for more information: [email protected] or 804-725-5022