Ensure Plausible Deniability — D.M. Ulmer

Ensure Plausible Deniability is a tale of the mid-sixties Soviet Navy flexing its muscles throughout the world's oceans by provoking head-to-head confrontations with U.S. units. Ensuing games of chicken on the surface and beneath the seas between vessels armed with nuclear weapons portended disaster. It would take only one hotheaded skipper on either side to go off half-cocked and plunge mankind into World War III. The saga is set in the backdrop of U.S. diesel-electric submarines' demise to make room for the higher performance nuclear powered submarines. However, the questionable nuclear power program selection criteria disregarded submariner performance excellence and accepted officer applicants solely on academic prowess. This practice may well have portended disaster of its own. Ensure Plausible Deniability is spiced with first-hand insights into submariner personal and distaff life.