Silent but deadly.

[professor rat]

Two books on submarine operations during the Cold War are on the market. The earlier, Blind Man's Bluff, has a copyright date of 1998, while the more recent, The Silent War, has a copyright date of 2001. The authors of Blind Man's Bluff refer several times to John Craven, auther of The Silent War, while Craven refers to Blind Man's Bluff in several places, sometimes to question its analysis.
The Silent War was written by one of the principles in submarine circles during the Cold War, John Craven. As such, he is in the paradoxical position of knowing more of the details than the authors of Blind Man's Bluff, while being bound by security regulations to say less. As a result, his book presents an interesting picture of the personalities involved, and an occasional interesting technical tidbit [two examples: big waves can be created on demand by driving a large ship at high speed - and turning it abruptly at the last second; materials have a critical temperature, below which they become brittle, rather than flexible.] - but less operational detail.
The book is written in the first person and with a sense of excitement that one would expect from an author having lived through the experiences personally. Despite stumbling over an occasional cliché or misspelled word, the writing is competent to very good.
Which to read? If you want to know what happened, I'd go for Blind Man's Bluff. Its content overcomes the better writing and sense of presence of The Silent Sea. If you want to know something about the people that made it happen, I'd go with The Silent War
amazon.com