First published 1982. Fontana paperback, 1985, pp 347, c.120,000 words.
Usually with Innes novels, there is an underlying theme that connects to a topical news issue of the day in which it was written. In this case it is the threat of oil pollution posed by large tankers in the restricted and busy water between Britain and France.
Another tanker goes aground off the Cornish coast, spilling its oil, wreaking the rural idyll of the protagonist and his wife. She is desperate for action and takes matters into her own hands with terrible consequences. In the aftermath, our hero sets out to unravel the truth regarding the oil spill: what actually happened and who was really responsible. In the process he uncovers a web of venality, corruption and fanatics.
From Cornwall the action moves to Europe and the Middle East and finally back to the U.K. The links in the chain are rather implausibly connected up and we are left to gasp at one bad guy after another.
Innes is great at describing life at sea, and while those descriptions are always to be admired. However, at least one section involving a small ship off the coast of Iran appeared to be rather shoe-horned into the story and didn’t quite jell with the rest of the plot. The ending, while dramatic, also seemed somehow disconnected.
Maybe not Innes’s finest plotting, but an entertaining read nonetheless.
© William John Graham, May 2022