Smoke on the Water

War in the South Atlantic - Part 3

By: James Philip

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

SMOKE ON THE WATER is the third book in the five-book strand about the FALKLANDS WAR OF 1969-70, and the nineteenth book of the core MAIN SERIES OF TIMELINE 10/27/62.

It is November 1969 in a world in which the swinging sixties never happened because the Cuban Missiles Crisis turned the Cold War ‘hot’ on the night of 27 October 1962 and the survivors have been living, and fighting it seems, ever since.

Only that spring there had been reasons for optimism at last. In the seventh year of the post-cataclysm era there was a new President in the White House, peace in Western Europe, the Soviet bear was in its cage, the United Nations going about its work, and famine and plague had been driven again to the margins of the globe.

But history never really goes away…not ever!

Now, over five years after Argentine Marines stormed ashore to ‘liberate’ the Malvinas in April 1964, the South Atlantic Task Force is poised to commence the re-taking of the Falkland Islands.

For the men in the South Atlantic there is only the iron grey sea and the slowly greening southern spring wilderness of the remote archipelago, lost in the vastness of the ocean as the final battle of the most tumultuous decade in human history approaches.

They have no time for the old alliances that will soon be fractured, or the court intrigues which will determine the fates of so many of the men for whom those the distant archipelago in the South Atlantic will become islands of no return.

Author’s note to readers: since the publication of OPERATION ANADYR was first published in October 2014, the Timeline 10/27/62 series has branched into and explored a number of additional narrative arcs and themes, and in several standalone stories.

For my readers who prefer to read the Timeline 10/27/62 books in the chronological order of the overall narrative arc SMOKE ON THE WATER = 46.

This reproofed and reformatted edition of Smoke on the Water was published on 5 January 2025.