Meanwhile, Anna continued to dive at the naval yard. Five weeks before Anna's revelation to Dexter, he had departed on a voyage for Russia aboard a ship called the Elizabeth Seaman. We learn that Eddie Kerrigan had been sailing for the past five years with the U.S. The next morning, Anna revealed that her father was Eddie Kerrigan, and she asked Dexter what happened to him. Q rejected the proposal.ĭexter and Anna met again at Mooshine, and they left and spent a passionate evening together. Q: that they launder the syndicate's money through war bonds.

Toward this end, he made a business proposal to the syndicate's head, Mr.

Meanwhile, Dexter grew increasingly dissatisfied with his organized crime dealings, striving to join the 'legitimate' business world in which his father-in-law, Arthur Berringer, operated.

Against all efforts to thwart her, she became the Brooklyn Naval Yard's first female diver. Undergoing the first tests for diving trainees, she met with a lot of resistance as the first woman to train for the job. She died a few weeks later.Īlthough her original job at the naval yard was to measure ship parts, Anna decided she wanted to become a diver, repairing battleships underwater. When she saw the ocean for the first time, Lydia spoke intelligibly for the first time in years. They met again later at the naval yard, and Dexter agreed to drive Anna and her younger disabled sister Lydia to the beach. Sensing that Dexter might know something about what happened to her father, Anna introduced herself to him as Anna Feeney, rather than Kerrigan. He and Anna met at one of his nightclubs, Moonshine, one evening, and although Anna remembered him from the trip with her father when she was a girl, Dexter did not recognize her. Dexter, we learn, was a boss in an organized criminal syndicate and owned a substantial number of nightclubs. Her father had disappeared without a trace five years earlier. With so many American men fighting overseas, Anna was among the first wave of women to hold jobs at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. Eleven-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanied her father, a union lackey named Eddie Kerrigan, to a business meeting at the Manhattan Beach home of a man named Dexter Styles - a meeting that proved to be fateful for all three characters.Įight years later, World War II was on. The novel opens in New York City in 1934, five years after the American stock market crash. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Egan, Jennifer.

Novel manhattan beach