![](\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1387100330l\/19476007.jpg\")
My book group throws up a mixed bag of reading materials, and I never quite know what I\u2019m going to get. This one seemed most unpromising at first glance: a war-era story of spies and secret missions aboard a Dutch freighter commandeered by British intelligence. Um\u2026 not really my thing. But after I chickened out of a few, I\u2019m determined to have a crack at everything from now on so I settled down to read.<\/p>\n
And (surprise!) I really enjoyed it. It\u2019s very much a boy\u2019s own adventure, with lots of creeping about in the dark, secretly repainting the ship to disguise it (not an easy task), and never quite knowing who is on who\u2019s side or what the ultimate objective is. There are some truly thrilling moments steering through minefields or arriving at a neutral port to find that it\u2019s changed allegiance overnight. There are also laugh-out-loud funny moments, as when the supposed Spanish captain (in fact a very lowly crew member) is produced for the benefit of a German U-boat, and turns out to be gloriously drunk. I didn\u2019t follow all the wartime nuances, but it didn\u2019t much matter.<\/p>\n
The main character, phlegmatic Dutchman Eric DeHaan, resignedly does everything that\u2019s asked of him, even the obviously suicide-mission final job, in the desire to do his bit for the war effort. His motley crew of many nationalities goes along with it too, in the main, with only a couple making a run for freedom. There\u2019s a gratuitous little romance, which never really rang true, and an oddly unexplained spy who\u2019s important enough to be ferried around Europe, but then vanishes again at the end (this is a motif of the author\u2019s, apparently, and the character turns up in multiple books). And although I\u2019m far from an expert, the historical and nautical details were utterly convincing to me. An enjoyable read. Four stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My book group throws up a mixed bag of reading materials, and I never quite know what I\u2019m going to get. This one seemed most unpromising at first glance: a war-era story of spies and secret missions aboard a Dutch freighter commandeered by British intelligence. Um\u2026 not really my thing. But after I chickened out of a few, I\u2019m determined to have a crack at everything from now on so I settled down to read. And (surprise!) I really enjoyed it. It\u2019s very much a boy\u2019s own adventure, with lots of creeping about in the dark, secretly repainting the ship to disguise it (not an easy task), and never quite knowing who is on who\u2019s side or what the ultimate objective is. There are some truly thrilling moments steering through minefields or arriving at a neutral port to find that it\u2019s changed allegiance overnight. There are also laugh-out-loud funny moments, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63],"tags":[225],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3085,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions\/3085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}