A rousing tale of American nautical lore and skullduggery, The Black Ships reveals a little-known, intriguing episode of American history. One of the nation's best-kept secrets, rum-running during Prohibition provided fast bucks for adventurous boatmen along the Atlantic Coast. The Black Ships unfolds the saga of the smuggling fleet that, at great risk, illegally imported liquor to America's shores. Drawing on interviews with rumrunners and their kin, government reports, and some of his own boyhood memories, Everett S. Allen reveals how the Coast Guard bravely tried to stem the flow of liquor, and how, in boats too fast to catch, the rumrunners circumnavigated the law.