THE DIVE: The Untold Story of the World’s Deepest Submarine Rescue
Stephen McGinty
RIGHTS AVAILABLE: Translation and all other rights handled by the bks Agency
RIGHTS SOLD: UK&Commonwealth/Harper Collins, North American/Pegasus Books, Film&TV/Mark Gordon Pictures
THE DIVE is a thrilling narrative non fiction in the tradition of The Perfect Storm and Apollo 13.
They were out of their depth, out of breath, and out of time. It was 1973. Two men were trapped in a crippled submarine 1,700 feet below sea. They only had enough air to survive for two days. On the ocean’s surface there was a hastily assembled flotilla of rescue ships from both sides of the Atlantic. The world held its breath to await word of a rescue.
In a routine dive to fix the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed, their mission had gone badly wrong. There was a catastrophic fault on board the Pisces III, and Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson’s mini-submarine went tumbling to the ocean bed almost half a mile below.
The crippled sub and its crew were trapped far beyond the depth of any previous sub-sea rescue. They had just two days’ worth of oxygen. However, on the surface the best estimates for a rescue of these men was a minimum of three days time.
THE DIVE is brilliantly researched by veteran journalist Stephen McGinty. Stephen adeptly reconstructs the race against time as Britain, America and Canada pooled their resources into a ‘Brotherhood of the Sea’ dedicated to stopping the ocean depths claiming two of their own. Based on previously undisclosed records, maritime logbooks, and exclusive interviews with all the key participants, THE DIVE takes the reader on an emotional and thrilling ride from the depths of defeat to a glimpse of the sun-dappled surface.
Stephen McGinty is a journalist, author and producer of BAFTA-winning television documentaries. The author of This Turbulent Priest: A Life of Cardinal Thomas Winning (HarperCollins); Churchill's Cigar (Macmillan); Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster (Macmillan) and Camp Z: How MI5 cracked Hitler's Deputy (Quercus).
Among the documentaries Stephen has developed and co-produced are Fire In The Night, based on his book, which won the Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Stephen also won both RTS and BAFTA Scotland awards for the 'best single documentary' — Dunblane: Our Story and The Bank That (Almost) Broke Britain.
“The Turbulent Priest is the year’s most surprising page-turner.”
“McGinty has a powerful story to tell and he does it brilliantly...he is a fine journalist. He tells his tale with great skill, energy and tact. Stephen has an eye for the illuminating detail, both human and technical. Books about important tragedies are common enough, but this is one of the best of its kind I’ve read.”