W. Matthew Hart isn’t your typical fiction author. He’s a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, former IBM Global Services executive, and a self-made novelist who’s published more than 30 books over the last two decades. His latest re-release, Sole Surviving Son, blends historical fact, maritime intrigue, and a deeply personal narrative into a suspenseful and emotional thriller that grips readers from the first page.
The novel opens with a memory, a traumatic one. A young boy on a stolen birthday bike ride witnesses a violent crime on a Cape Cod beach. The man responsible threatens the boy into silence, leaving him scarred and haunted. That boy grows up to become Alan Hast, a Marine veteran turned seafarer. Decades later, a discovery tied to a WWII-era shipwreck and a mysterious canister sets Hast on a collision course with the very man who destroyed his innocence.
Hart’s inspiration came from a mix of family legacy and personal obsession. “I started thinking about my grandfather,” he said in a recent interview. “He was a merchant marine sea captain. His ship, the S.S. Deepwater, was torpedoed by the Germans off the coast of New York during World War II. But no one in my family talked about it. It was almost like it was classified.”
That silence sparked something. Hart began writing — not just one book, but a series. Sole Surviving Son was one of his first. “I imagined what secrets might have gone down with that ship,” he explained. “Then I wrapped a fictional story around those facts.” The result is a novel that moves between 1940s wartime shipping routes and 1980s East Coast shorelines, exploring both personal trauma and geopolitical tension.
In Sole Surviving Son, the fictional S.S. Deepwater carries not only its routine cargo but also a mysterious steel canister — one the Germans are willing to sink a ship to retrieve. Among its passengers is a woman charged with protecting the container, and a captain who may be the only one with the integrity to see the voyage through. When the ship is torpedoed and the canister lost in Long Island Sound, a multi-generational mystery is born.
Hart’s protagonist, Alan Hast, takes on the role of the seeker. A survivor of war and witness to atrocity, Hast gets pulled into a high-stakes recovery mission that could vindicate his family, expose corporate sabotage, and bring down a powerful South American conglomerate. Along the way, he’s forced to face the ghost of that night on the beach — and the man who made him a victim.
The book’s title, Sole Surviving Son, refers to more than just a naval policy or a plot device. “It’s about legacy,” Hart said. “There’s a good guy and a bad guy. Both fathers. Both sons. And that dynamic — that contrast — drives the story. It’s about what we inherit and what we run from.”
The novel isn’t only about action and suspense. Three distinct love stories run through the timeline, each offering a different lens on grief, connection, and redemption. One unfolds aboard the water before it sinks. Another grows between Hast and a fellow investigator as they search for the lost canister. A third is barely kindled, forever interrupted by violence. Hart uses these relationships to add emotional depth to a plot brimming with sabotage, espionage, and seafaring peril.
Though fictional, the book is grounded in real history. Hart draws upon his own military background — he served in avionics and was stationed at elite posts including HMX-1, the Presidential helicopter squadron — to add technical authenticity to naval operations and wartime communication. A helicopter crash later left him 100% disabled. That injury, instead of ending his career, redirected it.
“I knew I couldn’t do the kind of work I did before,” Hart said. “So I started writing. At first, it was for my own amusement. But then it turned into something more.”
Hart not only writes his books — he edits and publishes them himself. He’s proudly independent, and it shows in the sharpness of his storytelling and the clarity of his prose. His background in business and engineering shines through in the structure and pacing of his novels, while his military experience adds grit and realism. His characters don’t just fight enemies; they wrestle with doubt, memory, and the weight of history.
When asked whether Sole Surviving Son is about redemption, Hart paused. “Not quite,” he said. “It’s about truth. About putting things to rest. Some scars never heal, but sometimes justice is the next best thing.”
The novel is the first in a loose series that includes Mega Blast and Pacific Princess, which continue the journeys of some of the same characters. Still, Sole Surviving Son stands strong on its own. It’s a tale of betrayal, loyalty, and perseverance — anchored in historical events but propelled by imagination.
Hart’s fans know they’re getting more than entertainment. They’re getting stories forged by someone who’s seen the world, survived hardship, and still believes in the power of narrative to illuminate what official history often overlooks.
For those curious about wartime secrets, sunken treasure, or the long reach of memory, Sole Surviving Son is a mystery worth surfacing.
