Hailed by Walter Lord, author of A Night to Remember, as a “splendid book,” this is the definitive account of the worst maritime disaster of modern times: the improbable collision of two luxury passenger liners in the North Atlantic

One of the largest, fastest, and most beautiful ships in the world, the Andrea Doria was on her way to New York from her home port in Genoa. Departing from the United States was the much smaller Stockholm. On the foggy night of July 25, 1956, fifty-three miles southeast of Nantucket, the Stockholm sliced through the Doria’s steel hull. Within minutes, the sea was pouring into the Italian liner. Eleven hours later, she capsized and sank into the ocean.

Associated Press journalist Alvin Moscow, who covered the court hearings that sought to explain the causes of the tragedy and interviewed all the principals, re-creates with compelling accuracy the actions of the ships’ officers and crews, and the terrifying experiences of the Doria’s passengers as they struggled to evacuate a craft listing so severely that only half of its lifeboats could be launched. Recounting the heroic, rapid response of other ships—which averted a catastrophe of the same scale as that of the Titanic—and the official inquest, Moscow delivers a fact-filled, fascinating drama of how a supposedly unsinkable ship ended up at the bottom of the sea.