Stark Realities

October 1918: Germany is suing for peace, terms for an armistice are being negotiated between the several capitals, and all U-boats have been ordered home from patrol. Among them is U8I, commanded by Otto von Mettendorff: he's young, dynamic, already approaching the status of an "Ace," and is infatuated with a new girlfriend who works not far from Wilhelmshaven. to which port U81 is now returning. However, U81 is "holed" by a destroyer and sent to the bottom of forty fathoms of English sea. Meanwhile in London, Anne Laurie, a young war widow employed in the Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy, learns of Otto's death. It jolts memories of a pre-war weekend in Berlin in the summer of 1913, the genesis of a compulsive story of two magnetic people torn apart by global conflict.