Casuals of the Sea

"There was a precision of speech and gesture, a sureness of touch, an expression of energy in repose in the boyish features that is the inalienable heritage of the sea."

Seeking better futures beyond their cheerless and constrained North London lives, Bert turns to soldiering, Minnie explores the

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Parisian demimonde, and Hanny sails away on a merchant steamer. The writing is uncluttered and fluid, the style leavened with a Dickensian lightness of touch. Once he has Hanny on a ship, McFee -- a steamship engineer himself -- opens the valves and charges the story with the details of steam and men and sea that he so clearly loves. He does suffer from a Victorian reticence to allow his characters much emotion, but he is sympathetic and nonjudgmental towards all of them.

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