The Italian liner Bianca C still blazed furiously" Associated Press, Grenada, 23 Oct 1961
The Bianca C Still Burns: A Grenada Novel
by Dunbar Campbell
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 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?
