While still seven hundred miles at sea en

route to New York, the Liquefied Natural

Gas supertanker Georgia Pioneer suffers a

"blowout." Although damage is sustained,

the blowout is capped and Georgia Pioneer

proceeds toward the United States and its

final fatal moment in New York Harbor.

There, while preparing to pump the LNG

ashore, the weakened ship ruptures and

explodes. Over Staten Island, Lower Man-

hattan, and Brooklyn flows an LNG vapor

stream chilled to minus 260~E At that tem-

perature, every metallic object it touches be-

comes brittle and fails, every liquid solidi-

fies, and every living organism freezes to

death. Among the latter, of course, are hun-

dreds of thousands of people. As the vapor

warms it expands to six hundred times its

frozen volume and encounters the inevitable

spark.

In the resulting firestorm, Manhattan

burns. The total loss of life is in the millions.

The fire department is overwhelmed, as had

been the Coast Guard at the time of the initial

leakage, their contingency plans hopeless in

the midst of monumental disaster.

Basil Jackson s novels are based on solid

reality. LNG tankers ply the seas. Their

cargoes are unloaded in heavily populated,

deep-water ports. The ships are fragile, the

LNG carried by one tanker easily capable of

destroying most of New York City. Acci-

dents such as Mr. Jackson supposes here are

possible--perhaps, in the long run, likely.

As always, the author creates human

stories to carry his warning. This new novel

is no exception. It is woven into a plot of

"high suspense. This may be Basil Jackson s

most dramatic tale to date.