Ghost Sea
A Novel
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- £6.49
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
"It's Joseph Conrad meets Elmore Leonard."—Vancouver Sun
A spellbinding tale of the sea: love, murder, and mysticism: At the turn of the century, a Kwakiutl warrior from British Columbia's wild northern islands raids an artifact collector's yacht to reclaim stolen sacred masks. He takes the collector's wife, Kate, as hostage on his 200-mile canoe voyage home. The collector hires Dugger, a coastal trader living on the edges of the law, to give chase in his ketch with the collector as passenger, but Dugger's financial salvation comes at a terrible price, for he is Kate's secret lover. Day and night Dugger sails the uncharted islands, through raging currents and ship-swallowing whirlpools, and the account of his pursuit is interwoven with Kate's harrowing and erotically charged journey.
Based on a true story, this novel reaches its thrilling climax at the last secret, hallucinatory potlatch of the ancient Kwakiutl culture, where the history of a doomed people is melded with the fury of three hearts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For his fiction debut, nautical and travel author M t (The Hills of Tuscany) introduces antihero-adventurer, S.V. Dugger, working boat salvage in the Pacific Northwest until he rescues a ketch set loose in a storm, its owner's remains discovered the following morning. Dugger fixes the boat and falls for Kate, the wife of George Hay, an unscrupulous Indian artifacts collector. When Kate heads to the Canadian coast, it is unclear if she goes as a kidnap victim or willingly, but there's no doubt the two Kwakiutl Indians transporting her are bad news. Despite rumors of cannibalism, ghosts and barbaric rites, Dugger pursues them accompanied by Nello, his half-Kwakiutl half-Italian mate; Charlie, the Chinese cook; and Kate's husband. They navigate dangerous waters, murderous enemies and Kwakiutl settlements, only to discover Charlie, a girl in boy's clothing, is not the only one on board who is not who she appears to be. M t excels at descriptions of boats and coastal geography, enthralling with unlikely subjects like polishing wood, conveying a cargo of illegal immigrants and steering through fog. His evocations of Kwakiutl rituals are richly sensory, but strain credulity. His dialogue captures nautical camaraderie, but his secondary characters teeter on stereotype. And Kate proves so open to new experiences that Dugger might be better off losing her and keeping the boat.
