The Good Shepherd was published by Michael Joseph in 1955. Commander George Krause, USN, commands the destroyer USS Keeling (“Dobie”), leading the escort of convoy HX-141 across the mid-Atlantic “Black Pit” — the gap in air cover where U-boats hunted most effectively in 1942-43.
The novel covers approximately 48 hours in real time: Krause on his bridge, exhausted, eating nothing, making decisions that determine whether thirty-seven merchant ships and their crews live or die. Forester strips away everything but the tactical problem: radar contacts, sonar pings, depth-charge attacks, fuel calculations, the endless tension of waiting for a torpedo’s impact. Krause is a devout Christian (the “good shepherd” of the title) who must protect his flock while killing submarines — and Forester lets this moral tension exist without resolving it.
The novel is Forester’s most technically demanding: readers must understand ASDIC (sonar), depth-charge patterns, convoy formations, and the tactical geometry of anti-submarine warfare. But the technical detail serves characterization: Krause’s competence under pressure, his loneliness (he is newly divorced), and his physical deterioration (he cannot leave the bridge to eat or sleep) make him a Hornblower of the modern era.
Tom Hanks adapted the novel as the 2020 film Greyhound, starring himself as Krause — one of the few films that captures the procedural reality of naval warfare.
Collecting The Good Shepherd
First edition (Michael Joseph, London, 1955): Blue cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition with jacket, fine/fine: $200–$600
- Without jacket, very good: $50–$150
- US first (Little, Brown): $100–$300