by IanMcGuire (Author)
'Fast-paced, gripping. A tour de force of narrative tension and a masterful reconstruction of a lost world' Hilary Mantel 'Utterly convincing and compelling, remorselessly vivid and insidiously witty. A startling achievement' Martin Amis A 19th-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp and highly original tale that grips like a thriller. Behold the man: stinking, drunk, brutal and bloodthirsty, Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaling ship bound for the hunting waters of the Arctic Circle. Also aboard is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money and no better option than to embark as ship's medic on this ill-fated voyage. In India during the Siege of Delhi, Sumner thought he had experienced the depths to which a man can stoop and imagined he'd find respite on the Volunteer, but now, trapped in the wooden belly of the ship with Drax, he encounters pure evil and is forced to act. As the true purposes of the expedition become clear, the confrontation between the two men plays out in the freezing darkness of an Arctic winter.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 326
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 11 Feb 2016
ISBN 10: 1471151247
ISBN 13: 9781471151248
Prizes: Long-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2016.