Overview

From the authors of the bestselling The Finest Hours, the riveting, deeply human story of President John F. Kennedy and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Chuck Maultsby, who risked their lives to save America during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During an infamous thirteen-day stretch of October 1962, America faced the prospect of imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy, and the U-2 aerial spy program.Above and Beyond tells the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis through the eyes of three characters: Kennedy, and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Charles Maultsby, who found themselves in the crosshairs of history, on the worst and most intense day of the crisis.Anderson, a decorated combat pilot, embarked on a top-secret mission from McCoy Air Force Base, Florida, to fly his U-2 spy plane over Cuba to photograph evidence that five Soviet R-2 missile sites are up and running.At the same time, thousands of miles away in Alaska, Maultsby climbed into his own U-2 spy plane and took off on what was believed to be a routine mission to the North Pole to gather radioactive air samples from a recent Russian nuclear test. But just after 12 PM, Maultsby suddenly became disoriented and steered his plane into Soviet airspace. In the White House, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness, and days impossible tension, was briefed about Maultsby and his missing U-2. If detected by the Soviets, its presence in Soviet air space could be considered an act of war. But as the president and his advisers wrestled with this information, more bad news came: another U-2 had gone missing--this time over Cuba.Above and Beyond is a deeply researched, gripping account of the lives of these three men, war heroes all, who were brought together during a day that could have changed history.

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9781549198090

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Casey Sherman is considered one of America's preeminent true-crime authors and investigative journalists. His books include The Ice Bucket Challenge; The Finest Hours, coauthored with Michael J. Tougias and made into a major motion picture by Walt Disney Pictures; Animal: The Bloody Rise and Fall of the Mob's Most Feared Assassin; Search for the Strangler; and Bad Blood. He has been a finalist for the Massachusetts Book of the Year honors and the New Hampshire Literary Awards nonfiction prize. He has been a featured guest on NBC's Today and Dateline; CBS's The Early Show, 48 Hours, and the CBS Evening News; ABC World News Tonight, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Discovery, The History Channel, A&E, The Travel Channel, and The View. Michael J. Tougias is the author and coauthor of twenty-three books, including Rescue of the Bounty, A Storm too Soon, Fatal Forecast, and Ten Hours Until Dawn. Tougias has written for the New York Times and several other prestigious magazines and newspapers. He is a sought-after lecturer who gives more than seventy presentations each year. He lives in Massachusetts. Maxwell Hamilton is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.

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