Customer Reviews

The Leper Ship (A Richard Mariner Series)

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The eponymous vessel is the "Napoli" which is being used to convey toxic waste illegally dumped in the Lebanon ,whee it has leaked and killed or disfigured several people.The locals are understandably less than thrilled by this and,with active support from the PLO attack the trucks taking the waste back to the ship in harbour.In the course of the attack the captain is killed

Enter Tonkin regular series character "John Mariner" and his new wife "Asha".He takes over as ship's captain and is charged with getting the vessel and its unstable cargo back to its home port of Naples.Matters are not straightforward however.Naples refuses to accept the ship or its cargo. Liverpool dockers go on strike rather than handle the cargo.The ship is redirected to Sept Isles,Quebec which agrees to provide a harbour for it and its contents

The novel is primarily the tale of its voyage to Sept Isles through a raging storm,in a ship riddled with conflicts between officers and crew and within the crew itself,all under intense media scrutiny and with opportunists like Greenpeace( an organization whose hypocrisy is stunning;they are an anti-capitalist anti American outfit who cover up their true opinions by feigning environmental concerns and thus snare the money of the feeble minded liberals)

The book specifically evokes comparisons with "Alien";;rusty old vessel a long way from pristine condition,on board a substance corrosive enough to eat its way through metal,internal tensions and all taking place in a claustrophbic ill-lit environment

Tha characters are a bit cardboard but to an extent this is to be expected in a formula thriller.I liked its cynicism about environmentalists who are shown as almost anxious to see a disaster as such would be of immense proaganda value to them

Good reading for lovers of sea yarns