The Ship Breakers

Richard Mariner #17

by Peter Tonkin

The new Mariner adventureRichard and Robin Mariner are supplying retired tankers to a Russian consortium. When Robin attracts the attentions of a shadowy group of men, she seeks refuge on board Prometheus4 and makes a desperate phone call to Richard. But Richard is incommunicado in Archangel police station, standing over a corpse found aboard Prometheus4 that very morning. And the Russian investigators suspect there are plenty more where that one came from...

216 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2007

About the author

Peter Tonkin's first novel, KILLER, was published in 1978. His work has included the acclaimed "Mariner" series that have been critically compared with the best of Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes.

More recently he has been working on a series of detective thrillers with an Elizabethan background. This series, "The Master of Defense", has been characterised as 'James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets William Shakespeare'. Each story is a classic 'whodunit' with all the clues presented to the reader exactly as they are presented to the hero, Tom Musgrave. The Kirkus Review described them as having 'Elizabethan detail, rousing action sequences, sound detection...everything a fan of historical mysteries could hope for."

Reviews

[Gay Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This adventurous science fiction opens in a future American Gulf city, where oil has run out and the seas rising has caused cities to be submerged underwater. Nailer, a small, thin, scarred teenager, is gathering copper wiring from salvaged oil tankers, in order to just survive and to make his quota for his heartless boss. Other teens are just waiting to take his place on the light crew in this dog eat dog world of poverty. Readers are immediately thrust into a world of have and have nots. The fast pace, stark environment and unique and powerful characters take you crawling into the dirty, dangerous guts of the tanker with Nailer, only to nearly be drown in a tank of oil, when his partner decides not to recue him. Readers liking the "Uglies" will enjoy this title.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is powerful young adult dystopian novel set in the not-so-distant American future. The main character, Nailer, an adolescent recycler of materials scavenged from old ships, finds himself embroiled in a conflict with large multi-national corporations. Add to that mix a young lady from the ruling class and you've got A Tale of Two Cities meets the Hunger Games. Plus there are genetically altered beasts. It's a pretty cool read.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting dystopia book. Way too much swearing, but otherwise a good read.