A World War's being fought in 1943, and Lieutenant Peter Maxwell wants in on it. But his assignment to the Liberty Hill Victory is not what he had in mind. An ammo ship commanded by racist officers and crewed by largely untrained and inexperienced African American sailors, it is a volatile floating powder keg in more ways than one.
In the wake of a deadly explosion and subsequent mutiny in San Francisco's Port Chicago, the Liberty Hill Victory puts out to sea—as Maxwell and his new ally, former Chicago "Black Belt" cop seaman "Sarge" Washington, struggle to keep the ship afloat in treacherous waters. Because if a typhoon doesn't sink them or their cargo doesn't blow them straight to hell, a looming, more human threat just might—as a brutalized corpse discovered at the ship's bottom hammers home a terrible truth: they are thousands of miles from anywhere with a murderer onboard.