The Bianca C Still Burns: A Grenada Novel - Paperback

by Dunbar Campbell (Author)

On a sunny morning in 1961, an explosion aboard Bianca C, the Italian luxury cruise liner anchored offshore the Caribbean island of Grenada, quickly engulfed the ship in raging fire that endangered hundreds of its passengers. The local people rushed to the rescue on a frantic flotilla of sailboats, motorboats, and rowboats, saving everyone still alive on the blazing ship before it sank. The Grenada people opened their schools, homes, and hearts to the stranded passengers until their safe return to Italy. Twenty-two years later, the Bianca C's owner, Mario Costa, returns to the island and to the people who had rescued him, his passengers, and crew. Now divorced and despondent, he hires a local diver, Storm Butler, to help him plan a secret dive to the ship. Storm, a former U.S. Marine who has returned to his homeland to open a scuba diving business, is concerned that there is more to Mario than meets the eye. Even more disturbing, the timing for a Bianca C dive is bad. And dangerous. Grenada's military commander, Colonel Reds, is planning to take over the island with Russian complicity. He has a deadly reputation and is deeply suspicious that Mario's mysterious plans might disrupt his political ambitions. Complicating matters further, CIA agents infiltrate the island and attempt to recruit Mario and Storm in their own covert plans for the Bianca C. In the midst of spreading conspiracies and betrayals, Storm's sister is murdered and his grieving mother breaks her silence about the day the Bianca C came to Grenada and never left. That's when Storm realizes that Mario and the Bianca C hold more burning secrets than he imagined. As the island plunges into chaos, Storm struggles to unravel the reasons for his sister's death. But could he find justice for her before he too is consumed by the rage sparked when the Bianca C sank twenty-two years ago?

Author Biography

Dunbar Campbell is a writer, public speaker, director of a research group, and a former U.S. Marine. His earliest writing skills were honed in danger when, as a teen-aged student activist growing up during turbulent years on the Caribbean island of Grenada, he contributed to and distributed antigovernment newspapers in support of a revolutionary movement. When secret police brutally crushed the organization, Campbell migrated to the United States and enlisted in the U.S. Marines. The revolutionary group eventually reorganized under the leadership of Maurice Bishop and overthrew the government in the 1979 revolution. Another violent coup in 1983 led to Prime Minister Bishop's execution and the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Among Grenada documents the U.S. military seized and stored at the National Archives is a passionate letter of congratulations to Prime Minister Bishop, written four years earlier and mailed from halfway around the world in Hawaii. It was signed Dunbar Campbell, U.S. Marines. Campbell is a certified scuba diver and runs an occasional marathon. He has a bachelor's degree in political science/economics and a master's degree in economics. He channels into his writings the dangers, secrets, and intrigues that shaped his life.