Tugboat Annie Brennan, irascible skipper of the Narcissus, largest vessel in the Deep-Sea Towing & Salvage fleet, is home-based in Secoma, Wash. She frequently outwits Captain Horatio Bullwinkle of the competing Salamander for assignments, The characters are imagined, the settings are sometimes real but often made up, growing from the fertile mind of author Norman Reilly Raine, who composed 67 short tales and novelettes for The Saturday Evening Post, 1931-1961. He sold motion picture rights to Hollywood and secured a career as a screenwriter for MGM, Warner Brothers and other studios. He won an Academy Award for The Life of Emile Zola screenplay in 1937.

This book is a dual biography of author - with rich background of his World War I career in the ambulance corps in Europe and rise to become a Maclean's journalist in Canada before wandering the Puget Sound area of Washington state to launch of his heroine - and of the helmswoman - detailing all the fiction stories, pastiches, movie scenarios, television plots and more.

The author, Bernard A. Drew, has researched and written more than 60 popular literature reference books and local Berkshire County, Massachusetts, local histories. His earlier book for Bear Manor Media is Jingle of the Silver Spurs: The Hopalong Cassidy Radio Program 1950-1952.