Krishna
Bernard Cornwell is one of the favourite authors of ours and we have reviewed multiple series of his books earlier. This one is a thriller, in the vein of Wildtrack and Sea Lord, both of which we have reviewed before.
The narrator Nicholas Breakspeare is a ship’s captain. His own ship, Masquerate, is being repaired and in the Bahamas, he is hired by a rich man called McIllvanny. While coming back from his penultimate trip of the contract, he discovers a yacht in distress called Hirondelle and has to board to ensure that there are no stranded folks in it. He has been hired to run a luxury, mechanized yacht called the Windbreaker, belonging to McIllvany. This Breakspeare and he is Tom Breakspere’s son. He and his puritan father did not see eye to eye and he rebelled and became a marine, and then a sea captain privately.
When he boards the craft, he finds that it is empty but it appears that someone tried to drown it by putting in holes using a submachine gun but did not succeed due to the foam layer in the hull. The surprise was that the shell casings were used by Warsaw pact countries. The boat was Beligian registered and the captain found it in the waters of Bahamas. Strange. So he decides to call in the police. His assistant, the beautiful Ellen warns him against this but Breakspeare is adamant.
The chief inspector who comes in is pure evil. He is a black man and he is named Billingsley. He He openly mocks Breakspeare and is very lewd and rude. He makes it abundantly clear that unless Breakspeare kept his mouth fully shut about the boat, his own yacht may not be returned to him. Knowing that he had no power, Billingsley accepts his fate but it still galls him.
When he meets McIllvanny, the latter offers him another voyage with the beautiful Ellen (who is on his current contract but on a platonic relationship with him) and offers a very high hourly rate. The reason? A Senator wants to give his son and daughter a trip around the Caribbean and has met and likes Breakspeare. He only wants him to do the job. However, Breakspeare declines as he is looking forward to finishing his contract and sailing off in his now repaired Masquerate. With Ellen if she would accept to sail with him.
He goes with the last trip with a proctologist and two lawyers. His father, the great actor, was known to everyone but our man does not say that he rebelled and left the house and did not follow in his father’s footsteps, even though, among the children (from multiple wives) he is the one who looked most like his father physically.
He is persuaded by the Senator to take the trip by a show of humility and friendliness, which Ellen swears is fake.
Ellen and Nick find their newly restored boat scratched by a smaller boat. The man who owns it Jesse Sweetwater, handsome, arrogant, crude and after initially impressing Ellen, he gets doused with fire extinguisher and leaves in anger.
When the trip starts the girl Mary-Ann seems to be fighting but Rickie is rebellious. They put it down to his withdrawal until they discover that an accomplice of his has sneaked cocaine into the ship and that he has been using. Furious, Nicholas physically punishes him looked on by a supportive Chatterton sent by the Senator.
Rickie seems cowed but the next day Nick finds the boat disabled with the cutting of cables that support the mast and also sugar thrown in the fuel tank. As Nick is trying to fix it, in comes Sweetwater with three goons, armed to the teeth. It turns out that Sweetwater is Rickie’s supplier and Nick and crew are helpless to prevent Rickie from leaving.
All for a while when Sweetwater tries to take Ellen and pays for it. In the distraction both Chatterton and Nick move killing two gunmen and splashing into the water to escape. Exhilerating stuff.
Thessy, the innocent sweet boy, was dead and the ship was in the hands of the villains. The three – Nick, Ellen and Chatterton survive by swimming to an island in the dark and Nick resolves revenge, to kill the remaining gunmen and Sweetwater.
He and Ellen get close and when Ellen is taken back by Maggot, Nick is happy. However, when he reaches back to Freetown again, he finds that Ellen is not to be found anywhere. Then starts a phenomenal cat and mouse game. Nick is pursued by unknown enemies and even his ex colleagues are both plotting against him and are afraid of him.
When he realizes that the Senator knows where Sweetwater is keeping both Rickie and his sister, and needs his help, Nick agrees solely for the purposes of rescuing Ellen. He, the Senator and Maggot go in a rubber dinghy to the island identified (by, incidentally, an aerial photo taken by Nick himself earlier) and there the whole scenery goes into high tension action.
Gripping stuff indeed and Nick survives it all. He finally does not find Ellen and the reason is another twist in the story.
Absolutely fascinating and nearly unputdownable as stories come.
8/10
— Krishna