"The ship's charismatic and idealistic political officer, Valery Sablin, ... wanted to see the end of the corrupt Brezhnev regime and intended to take the ship to Leningrad, from which it would broadcast an appeal to the Soviet people. Unfortunately, Soviet air strikes brought the ship to a halt, Sablin was executed, and most of his family and crew were disgraced. But the affair played a part in naval history by shaking up the Soviet navy, in political history by being one of the factors that generated glasnost and all that followed, and in literary history by inspiring Tom Clancy's career-launching megaseller, The Hunt for Red October. Young wrote the memorandum that inspired Clancy, and with writer Braden has expanded it into a gripping tribute to a hero and a vivid portrait of the Soviet navy at its height."—Booklist