The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice

By Chad Millman

Book Overview

One hundred years ago, in July 1916, an act of terrorism in New York Harbor changed the world.

The attack in New York Harbor was so explosive that people as far away as Maryland felt the ground shake. Windows were blown out uptown at the New York Public Library; the main building at Ellis Island was nearly destroyed; Statue of Liberty was torn into by shrapnel from the explosion, which would have measured 5.5 on the Richter scale. Chaos overtook Manhattan as the midnight sky turned to fire, lit up with exploding ammunition.

The year was 1916. And it had been shockingly easy.

While war raged in Europe, Americans watched from afar, unthreatened by the danger overseas. Yet the United States was riddled with networks of German spies hiding in plain sight. The attack on New York Harbor was only one part of their plans: secret anthrax facilities were located just ten miles from the White House; bombs were planted on ships, hidden in buildings, and mailed to the country's civic and business leaders; and an underground syndicate helped potential terrorists obtain fake IDs, housing, and money. President Woodrow Wilson knew an attack of this magnitude was possible, and yet nothing was done to stop it. Americans, feeling buffered by miles of ocean and burgeoning prosperity, had ignored the mounting threat.

That all changed on a warm summer evening in late July, when the island in New York Harbor called Black Tom exploded, setting alight a vast store of munitions destined for the front.

Three American lawyers -- John McCloy, Amos Peaslee, and Harold Martin -- made it their mission to solve the Black Tom mystery. Their hunt for justice would take them undercover to Europe, deep into the shadowy world of secret agents and double-crosses, through the halls of Washington and the capitals of Europe. It would challenge their beliefs in right and wrong. And they would discover a sinister plot so vast it could hardly have been imagined -- a conspiracy that stretched from downtown Manhattan to the very heart of Berlin.

The Detonators is the first full accounting of a crime and a cover-up that resonate strongly in a post-9/11 America. And much of the atmosphere and rhetoric in play 100 years ago remains eerily similar to discussions surrounding national security and immigration today. As Millman deftly illustrates in The Detonators, an island may have disappeared, but the resulting lessons have only grown stronger and more urgent, and history has a persistent way of stirring up its ghosts.

This is their story.

"A gripping account of conspiracy." -- New York Times

"A ready-made suspense thriller." -- Boston Globe

"Exhaustively researched... fascinating." -- Entertainment Weekly, 50 Hot Summer Books

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316734969
• ISBN13: 9780316734967
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Excellent summer reading

This is a wonderful read - interesting, relevant and timely, and better than fiction. Millman has struck an excellent balance, weaving facts into a captivating narrative that is a perfect book for relaxed reading. Books like THE DETONATORS should be part of curricula in high school and college history courses because it brings history alive. Impressive that a sports guy can turn such an excellent page-turner.

Those who do not learn from history...

How no one thought to write this book until now is extraordinary. Millman found a chapter in U.S. history that eerily foreshadows the events of 9/11 and beyond, and he had the writerly discipline to avoid hitting readers over the head with it. Instead, he tells a dramtaic story of espionage and legal intrigue, in prose that's fast-paced and easily accessible without being simple or condescending. Perfect summer reading. Fall, Winter and Spring, too.

About an almost unknown incident of German sabotage

In 1916 World War I was going full strength in Europe but America was not involved. Or to be more accurate America was willing to sell anything (such as arms and ammunition) to anyone and everyone. Because of the blockade imposed on Germany by England and France, this effectively meant that nothing could be sold to Germany but England and France could get anything they wanted. Germany was not pleased by this state of affairs. On July 30, 1916 there was an estimated two million pounds of explosives and ammunition in storage on Black Tom Island in New York harbor. German agents were able to blow it up. Strangely enough there seemed to be little investigation of the incident until many years later when three lawyers outside of the Government uncovered the facts. This book is the story of the German plot and the subsequent investigations. This incident is so little known that this is a very welcome book.

Don't Judge a Book by its Author

The title of my review is not meant as an insult to the author. Indeed, I wish to praise him. Whenever I'm intrigued by a book, I'll check out the author's bio on the dust jacket. Chad Millman's credentials: Sports Illustrated, CNNSI, ESPN The Magazine. I thought: What's a guy like this doing writing about history? My skepticism proved groundless. Millman has produced a well-researched, highly engaging, elegantly written chronicle about the German Fifth columnists who operated in the U.S. prior to America's involvement in WW I. The German sabotage campaign culminated in the explosion of the munitions depot on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor in 1916. Millman vividly re-creates the events that led up to this sordid incident, and the decades-long quest to hold the German government to account for it. The complex storyline involves a long cast of characters, and the author helpfully publishes a list of them at the outset of the book. One of them, the German military attache who masterminded a counterfeit passport operation, would go on to briefly lead the German government in the waning days of the Weimar Republic. However, the most famous of Black Tom's characters is John McCloy, the intrepid lawyer whose indefatigable pursuit of justice (aided by two other attorneys) was a springboard to a prominent role in military intelligence during WW II, as a senior aide to War Secretary Henry Stimson. McCloy was later appointed the first High Commissioner in West Germany after the war, and served as an advisor to Presidents until his death in 1989. Millman writes in a captivating narrative style that makes "The Detonators" a quick, pleasing read. But I ended the book still wondering how and when he became interested in the long-forgotten Black Tom story. I wish he would have told us.

Gripping story of a forgotten episode in our history

I got this book while on vacation because the cover caught my interst. I ended up not being able to put the book down. This book describes sabotage episodes that occurred right before the U.S. entry into WWI. Even more, the book gives details of the persistence of efforts between the two world wars to prove that Germany conducted this sabotage. It is a fascinating portrait of the many characters involved, and a well written account of episodes in our history that I had never heard of before, despite reading quite a bit of history. I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in history.