The Edge of Honor is the second novel by former destroyer captain and destroyer squadron commodore PT Deutermann. Set during 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.
Further complicating matters for Brian, is the fact that his ship appears to be riddled with drug use, senior leadership appears to just ignore the problem, while senior enlisted leadership want to keep it under wraps by doling out a little vigilante justice now and then. Brian must balance his duty to put the safety of the ship first, against the necessity of following orders to fix his career.
This is a very good example of Write What You Know, 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.
Positively Identified Trope Advisory Zone
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: This is the first ever naval deployment that Maddie Holcomb must endure. Already dealing with abandonment issues from her Disappeared Dad, Maddie gets lonely very fast.
- As You Know: The author states at the end of the book how an arresting gear malfunction aboard an aircraft carrier, that caused a few deaths when the arresting cable snapped and whipped back, was blamed on drug use by a few flight deck crewmen. The author states that this led to top-down random drug tests of all naval personnel up to and including the CNO. He states that this measure severely curtailed the problem.
- Corrupt Cop: Two Masters At Arms - shipboard policemen are in the drug ring.
- Death Notification: When Maddie answers the doorbell at her husband's ship's captain's home and sees a naval officer, 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. They have sent a Captain.
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: The Captain is terminally ill with bowel cancer, but completely obfuscated this from the US Navy, so he could go on one last deployment as captain of a warship.
- Disappeared Dad: Maddie’s father walked out on her and her mother when she was a kid. Maddie has abandonment issues as a result, which surface when Brian deploys for six months.
- The Dreaded: Chief Martinez is feared, particularly by the drug users aboard the ship. Back in San Diego, Autrey the jungle survival instructor is feared by the marine Officer Candidates.
- Drugs Are Bad: On a warship, where lives are at stake, some very dangerous equipment needs to be operated with care and precision, and the consequences of inattention can be lethal, absolutely!! Which is why, as the author states in an epilogue note, the real US Navy has a strict drug testing regimen for everyone up to and including the CNO.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: An interesting variety exists onboard this ship. The XO and Chief of the Boat know about the rampant drug use among the enlisted crewmen, but don’t do anything official about it. They take care of things informally usually by Chief Martinez severely beating up anyone caught doing drugs, or passing the buck onto Shore Patrol whenever they dock at a port. They are doing this because an official investigation into a possible drug peddling ring onboard will uncover the Captain’s secret.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Captain, who was once EOD during WW2, diffuses the bomb dropped by the NVAF MiG, saving the ship, but drowns in the process.
- Jive Turkey: 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.
- Large and in Charge: Senior Chief Louis Jesus-Maria Martinez. And he is also described as looking really scary.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Happens to Brian on the night before he departs with his ship.
- Malcolm Xerox: The African American ringleader peddles drugs to mostly white sailors as a way to punish them for racial oppression.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Rocky, the dealer got into this because he felt that the Navy sold him a bill of goods to get him to enlist.
- Rank Up: At the end, Brian gets the promotion to Lieutenant Commander that he wanted.
- Southern Belle: Maddie is one.
- Spanner in the Works: Brian’s bringing up two fire control directors on charges of doing drugs on watch threatens to blow wide open the XO’s efforts to hide the captain’s illness from the Navy.
- Toxic Friend Influence: 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 Hard-Drinking Party Girl lifestyle. But where Tizzy stopped just short of sexual infidelity, the lonely Maddie becomes powerless to resist.
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Write What You Know: The author, like Brian, served as a Weapons Officer on a warship performing a PIRAZ (positive identification radar advisory zone) mission. - Up Through the Ranks: The Captain had served as an enlisted EOD technician during WW2 .
