A rousing tale of American nautical lore and skullduggery, The Black
Ships reveals a little-known, intriguing episode of American history.
One of the nation's best-kept secrets, rum-running during Prohibition
provided fast bucks for adventurous boatmen along the Atlantic Coast.
The Black Ships unfolds the saga of the smuggling fleet that, at great
risk, illegally imported liquor to America's shores. Drawing on
interviews with rumrunners and their kin, government reports, and some
of his own boyhood memories, Everett S. Allen reveals how the Coast
Guard bravely tried to stem the flow of liquor, and how, in boats too
fast to catch, the rumrunners circumnavigated the law.