History Literature / TheEdgeOfHonor

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: The Captain, who was once EOD during WW2, diffuses the bomb dropped by the NVAF [=MiG=], saving the ship, but drowns in the process]].

* UpThroughTheRanks: The Captain had served as an enlisted EOD technician during WW2 .

* UpThroughTheRanks: The Captain had served as an enlisted EOD technician during {{WW2}}.

* UpThroughTheRanks: The Captain had served as an enlisted EOD technician during WW2.

! Positively Identified Trope Advisory Zone

* YourCheatingHeart: Maddie cheats on Brian with a Native American survival training instructor. Brian sleeps with a high class Filipino hooker while on liberty in Subic Bay.

* DeathNotification: When Maddie answers the doorbell at her husband's ship's captain's home, she immediately realizes what he is there for. She then sees his rank and realizes ''who'' he has come to notify. Standard practice is supposedly to send an officer at the same rank of the officer that died. [[spoiler: They have sent a Captain.]]

* WriteWhatYouKnow: The author, like Brian, served as a Weapons Officer on a warship performing a PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) mission.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: The author, like Brian, served as a Weapons Officer on a warship performing a PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) mission.
* YourCheatingHeart: Maddie gives in and has an affair with Autrey. [[spoiler: Brian has drunken sex with a prostitute in Subic Bay]]

''The Edge of Honor'' is the second novel by former destroyer captain and destroyer squadron commodore PT Deutermann. Set during [[UsefulNotes/VietnamWar the war in Vietnam in 1969]], the story follows a couple - navy lieutenant Brian Holcomb and his wife of about two years Madison McNair "Maddie" Holcomb, as both of them deal with a deployment to the South China Sea. Brian's naval officer career has suffered a setback owing to a less than stellar performance evaluation during his last sea tour, and this deployment could very well be his last chance to earn a promotion and get his career back on track. For Maddie, this is the first time she has to deal with a deployment to sea, where she will be seperated from her husband for six months. Clouding her ability to deal with it, are her memories of her father abandoning her and her mother, as well as the exotic stranger who has suddenly entered her life.

* JiveTurkey: The few black sailors involved in the drug dealing ring intentionally engage in "shuckin' 'n jivin'" just to throw officers off their back. They hope that the officers would consider all that jukin' and jivin' to be evidence of low intelligence and therefore consider them incapable of running a drug ring.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: The author, like Brian, served as a Weapons Officer on a warship performing a PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) mission.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: The author, like Brian, served as a Weapons Officer on a warship performing a PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) mission.
* YourCheatingHeart: Maddie slowly drifts into a fling with Autrey throughout the course of the book. Brian, for his part, isn't off the hook either - he has a drunken roll in the hay with a prostitute in Subic Bay.

* ToxicFriendInfluence: Maddie falls in with Tizzy Hudson, a woman whose husband is on his last ever deployment and will be leaving the Navy soon after. Therefore, she gets sucked into Tizzy’s HardDrinking)artyGirl lifestyle. But where Tizzy stopped just short of sexual infidelity, the lonely Maddie becomes powerless to resist.

This is a very good example of WriteWhatYouKnow, as the ship featured here is very similar to, and is carrying out the same type of mission, as the ship that the author himself served on, during a sea tour in the Vietnam War.