About the Book

On April 20, 2010, a billion dollar oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing eleven people and untold numbers of birds, fish and other forms of marine life. People all around the Gulf found that their livelihoods had been destroyed, thanks to an uncontrollable eruption of oil that forced the fishing and tourism industries to grind to a halt.

Now veteran oil rig captain John Konrad and award-winning journalist Tom Shroder team up to reveal the true story of what caused the unspeakable disaster on board BP’s Deepwater Horizon. Fire on the Horizon reveals the negligence, hubris and rampant corporate greed that led to the disaster, as well as the heroism of the men and women on board the doomed rig. This extraordinary real-life adventure explains just why the Horizon went down — and why it didn’t have to.

Tom Shroder was an editor and writer at the Washington Post from 1999 to 2009. Under his stewardship, the Washington Post Magazine won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in both 2008 and 2010. He is the author of the nonfiction bestseller Old Souls, and lives in Vienna, Virginia.

John Konrad is a veteran oil rig captain and a former employee of the Deepwater Horizon’s owner, Transocean. He is the founder of the world’s leading maritime blog, gcaptain.com. A graduate of SUNY Maritime College, he lives in Morro Bay, California.

Critical Praise

“One of the best disaster books I’ve ever read...I tore through it like a novel but with the quesy knowledge that the whole damn thing is true. A phenomenal feat of journalism.” — Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and War

“Harrowing...the best account yet of what went wrong.” — —Daily Beast

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780062066541
• ISBN 10: 0062066544
• Imprint: Harper Large Print
• On Sale: 03/15/2011
• Trimsize: 6.000 in (w) x 9.000 in (h) x 0.760 in (d)
• Pages: 386
• List Price: $34.00
• BISAC1 : HISTORY / General
• BISAC2 : SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disasters & Disaster Relief
• BISAC3 : TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Environmental / Pollution Control
• BISAC4 : TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Power Resources / Fossil Fuels