Black Oil Chief USN By: William E. Sneed (356 pages) Reviewer:  Terry Miller Overall Rating:  Three Stars--Recommended. A solid effort. Black Oil Chief USN is a novel about a Chief Boiler Technician in the late 1970s when permissiveness and drugs threatened to destroy the U.S. Navy. BTC Phillip Keith is only three weeks from retirement when he is ordered to an old Gearing-class destroyer ending its WestPac deployment and heading back to San Diego. After the comfortable automation of the propulsion plant in a new cruiser, Keith must remember how to steam the old manual 600-pound boilers of a WWII-built tin can and do it under less than optimum conditions. USS BISCAY is a relic by this time and her primary assignment is training Naval Reservists aboard as the ship gets ready to return stateside, the fire room watches are port and starboard, six on and six off and the chief has to stand watches himself. Making conditions worse one of his senior petty officers is nothing short of rebellious to the CPO’s authority and seems to have the backing of the Engineering Officer, a man who doesn’t like Chief Keith from the moment they meet and who demands that the chief do nothing more than act as a watch stander for his remaining three weeks in the Navy. As if that weren’t enough, the BISCAY is conducting a personnel experiment unlike any the Navy has ever seen: there are women assigned to a U.S. warship for the first time and they are all BTs in his fire room. More serious plot twists await Phillip Keith in the form of drug smuggling, a typhoon that nearly sinks the ship, and murder on board. Keith can’t avoid the entanglements because he is the only person obviously not connected with whatever criminal activity is going on aboard the ship and the captain insists that the Chief find the drugs and whoever is behind the illegal activities. Through all of the action and a romantic attraction he tries hard to avoid, Chief Keith’s personal spirituality is brought to the fore making him analyze his beliefs and his long denial of God. Bill Sneed weaves a good sea tale of love and intrigue, murder and conspiracy, and the love of a man for his ship and the sea. The book is a real page turner and for those readers who, like me, know little of what goes on in a fire room, there are clear explanations of how things work in the “holes.” The information learned is reason enough to read Black Oil Chief but this is a well-constructed story told from experience and while not everyone will be comfortable with the religious aspects of the story, the basic plot line will grab and hold the reader’s attention from the first page to the last. Availability Tin Can Sailors Ship's Store