Above and Beyond

From the authors of the bestselling The Finest Hours comes 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 the ominous two weeks of the Cold War’s terrifying peak, two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy and the U-2 aerial spy program. On October 27, 1962, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness, and days of impossible tension, was briefed about a missing spy plane. Its pilot, Chuck Maultsby, was on a surveillance mission over the North Pole, but had become disoriented and steered his plane into Soviet airspace. If detected, its presence there could be considered an act of war. As the president and his advisers wrestled with this information, more bad news came: another U-2 had gone missing, this one belonging to Rudy Anderson. His mission: to photograph missile sites over Cuba. For the president, any wrong move could turn the Cold War nuclear. Above and Beyond is the intimate, gripping account of the lives of these three war heroes, brought together on a day that changed history. Selected as a “Top 10 Nonfiction Books to Read” (2018) by the MA Book Awards

Author Biography

Casey Sherman is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author of seven books: The Finest Hours, Boston Strong, Animal, A Rose for Mary, Bad Blood, Black Irish, and Black Dragon. Both The Finest Hours and Boston Strong have been made into major motion pictures. He received the Edward R. Murrow Award for Journalistic Excellence as a member of the CBS Boston news team, and has been nominated for an Emmy Award. A featured guest on major television networks and news programs, Sherman has lectured at the National Press Club and the US Coast Guard Command Center in Washington, DC. He lives in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Michael J. Tougias is the author and coauthor of twenty-nine books, including So Close to Home (Pegasus, 2016), Rescue of the Bounty (Scribner, 2014), A Storm too Soon (Scribner, 2013), The Finest Hours (Scribner, 2010), Fatal Forecast (Scribner, 2007), and Ten Hours Until Dawn (St Martin’s Press, 2005). Tougias has written for the New York Times and several other prestigious magazines and newspapers, and has lectured across the country to groups as diverse as Fortune 500 Corporations, Associations and Public Libraries. He lives in Massachusetts and Florida.