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Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: This thrilling nautical mystery begins with an empty ship coasting through the dark and unfolds into a courtroom drama. On a cold, foggy night, a little sailboat called the Sea Witch is cruising calmly through the dark when a freighter suddenly rears out of the mist on a collision course. The crew of the small craft leaps into action, straining the Sea Witch's sails to the limit, barely getting her out of the way. John Sands, captain of the Sea Witch, catches a glimpse of the great ship as it passes by: Her name is Mary Deare, and her crew is nowhere to be seen. A salvage expert, Sands sees a payday in the abandoned, drifting hulk. He finds one man aboard the Mary Deare, the first officer, who has driven himself half-mad trying to sail the freighter on his own. Getting the ship safely to port and unraveling the mystery of why it was abandoned will push Sands to his breaking point�??and reveal the true nature of greed on the high seas. The inspiration for a film of the same name starring Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston, this incredible nautical adventure is a chilling story of maritime justice, and the terrible things that happen when the order is given to abandon ship.… (more)
User reviews
Those events, which take up roughly the first third of The Wreck of the Mary Deare are among the best that Innes, a superb adventure-story writer, ever crafted. His experience as a deep-water yachtsman and his familiarity with the Channel translate into a vivid sense of place, and the scenes aboard the dying freighter are gripping. The scenes of Patch and the narrator in the stokehold of the Mary Deare, shoveling coal as if their lives depended on it (which, indeed, they do), are a vivid reminder that action need not be violent to be thrilling.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare, however, is as much a mystery as a sea story—why did the crew abandon ship? why was Patch aboard? what happened to her original captain?—and as a mystery it falters. The courtroom scenes and amateur detective work that make up the long middle section of the book are competent but uninspired, and they dissipate much of the narrative momentum. The final section returns to the Channel, and delivers more of Innes’ superbly written men-against-the-sea action scenes, but the need to wrap up the mystery drags like a sea-anchor. Taken as a whole, The Wreck of the Mary Deare is only adequate, but the good parts are more than good enough to make it essential reading for fans of modern sea stories.
As usual, and despite these faults, it's worth reading for a couple of really excellent adventure sequences. The initial battle to save the Mary Deare and the epic, Moby-Dick style, chase in the final section of the book are both remarkably convincing, despite the hugely improbable premises they are built on. We are really made to feel we know what it's like to be on a ship that's breaking up on submerged rocks.