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And the Deep Blue Sea
A sailor stranded in the Pacific Ocean finds there are a million ways to die.
His life in pieces, Harry Goddard buys a thirty-two-foot sloop and sets out to sail the Pacific. He is a thousand miles from anywhere when his craft strikes an unseen object, and begins taking water. For all his desperate efforts, he cannot save her, and Harry is forced into his life raft, to drift without food, water, or shelter from the sun. He is near death when the "Leander" rescues him. But by the time his trip is over, he'll wish he'd taken his chances in the open water. A tramp freighter sailing under the Panamanian flag, the "Leander" is en route to the Philippines when its crew spots Harry and takes him aboard. But as he regains his strength, Harry uncovers a murderous conspiracy that could destroy the ship that saved him.
His life in pieces, Harry Goddard buys a thirty-two-foot sloop and sets out to sail the Pacific. He is a thousand miles from anywhere when his craft strikes an unseen object, and begins taking water. For all his desperate efforts, he cannot save her, and Harry is forced into his life raft, to drift without food, water, or shelter from the sun. He is near death when the "Leander" rescues him. But by the time his trip is over, he'll wish he'd taken his chances in the open water. A tramp freighter sailing under the Panamanian flag, the "Leander" is en route to the Philippines when its crew spots Harry and takes him aboard. But as he regains his strength, Harry uncovers a murderous conspiracy that could destroy the ship that saved him.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
7 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
About the author
Charles Williams
33 books100 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
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July 13, 2019
My next appointment with hard-boiled fiction maestro Charles Williams is And the Deep Blue Sea. Williams, who spent ten years in the U.S. Merchant Marine before working as an electronics inspector until his publishing career took off in the early 1950s, alternated between backwoods noir and seafaring thrillers, with two of his best--Hell Hath No Fury (a.k.a The Hot Spot) and Dead Calm--serving as the source material for multiple movies. Published in 1971 near the end of Williams' life, And the Deep Blue Sea is so exciting in the early going that I wasn't sure it could stay that great. It doesn't, but I enjoyed the ride that the author took me on.
The novel takes place in present day and begins with Harry Goddard in a tight spot. Forty-five years old, divorced and childless following the death of his daughter five months ago, things couldn't seem to get much worse for the man until the thirty-two-foot sloop Shoshone he was sailing solo across the Pacific hits an obstruction and goes down in half an hour. Adrift in a raft intended for skin-diving expeditions, he has no oars, no sail and no food. The only water on board is what remains in a Jack Daniels bottle Goddard kept in the cockpit. Death by thirst seems likely until he wakes in the night to spot an old freighter dead in the water a mile away.
The Leander carries a crew of thirty and passengers numbering four. Madeleine Lennox is a randy fifty-year-old widow of a U.S. Navy captain getting her sails hoisted by a beefcake steward. Thirty-four-year-old Karen Brooke is headed to Manila for a job with her father's steamship company. Egerton is a sixty-five-year-old Limey and retired colonel. Krasicki is a Pole who's taken ill in his cabin. The engines stopped to allow a hot bearing to cool, Karen is stargazing on the boat deck when she spots a man in the water. She alerts the captain and Goddard is rescued. Ship's mate Lind, the very tall, very capable executive officer, takes care of the new passenger.
It was called the hospital but it was only a spare room on the lower deck that had originally housed the gun crew when the Leander was built and put into service toward the end of World War II. It contained four bunks, a washbasin, some metal lockers, and a small desk. Naked and still dripping, Goddard was seated on one of the lower bunks toweling himself after the ecstasy of a freshwater shower, knowing that any minute now the reaction would hit him and he'd collapse like a dropped souffle. Lind had just come back from somewhere, and the passageway outside was still jammed with crew members peering in.
Word had already spread that he'd been sailing a small boat single-handed across the Pacific, and as they grinned and voiced their congratulations and the cheerful but inevitable opinion of working seamen that anybody who'd sail anything across the --ing ocean just for the fun of it ought to have his --ing head examined, they tossed in on the other lower bunk a barrage of spare gear includig several pairs of shorts, some slides, a new toothbrush in a plastic tube, toothpaste, cigarettes, matches and a pair of dungarees. A young Filipino in white trousers and a singlet pushed his way through the jam with a tray containing cold cuts, potato salad, bread, fruit, and a pitcher of milk.
Goddard discovers their Captain Steen is a Bible pounder and nickel pincher worried about the paperwork that the castaway's arrival will generate. Goddard reveals himself to be a movie producer and has the ship's wireless operator contact his attorneys to wire the shipping company the money to cover his passage and expenses. Assembled in the dining room, Goddard meets the other passengers, thanking Karen for saving his life. He even draws the reclusive Krasicki out of his cabin. The Pole, getting a look at his fellow passengers, seems to recognize Egerton and grows agitated. He returns with a Czech automatic and shoots the Limey twice, killing him.
While Lind speaks German, he is unable to get a lucid answer from Krasicki about why he murdered Egerton. Lind and Goddard remove Egerton's eyepatch and discover the eye underneath to be perfectly normal, indicating he might have been traveling under a disguise and was not be who he claimed to be. Lind recalls that Krasicki was a Polish Army POW in 1939 and had been shuffling around South America as a timber surveyor. With no next of kin, Egerton is buried at sea, and as Goddard, Karen and Madeleine discuss the shooting in front of Lind, it occurs to the movie producer that what they witnessed seemed almost staged.
Goddard's first prediction--that Krasicki will meet with a tragic death--comes true when the prisoner is found hanging in his cabin. Goddard realizes that if he takes his suspicions to the captain he risks becoming the next passenger to meet with an accident. When Madeleine confides she has suspicions about Egerton's death, the producer keeps his cards close to the vest, not knowing if he can trust her either. Lind shares with him a radiogram from the Buenos Aires police revealing that "Egerton" was Hugo Mayr, a Nazi war criminal believed dead. Goddard is certain now that the shooting they witnessed was staged and the conspirators are still on board.
Lind was the ship's doctor, and with an imagination of that order there'd be no dearth of illuminating detail to enter in the log as to cause of death. Found dead in bunk of obvious cardiac arrest. Went to bed drunk, set mattress afire with cigarette, and suffocated. Suffered severe concussion in fall, and died two days later without regaining consciousness. With enough morphine in him to kill a rhinoceros. The findings would be subject to review by higher medical authority, of course, except for the minor difficulty that the body was buried in the ooze five miles down in the Pacific Ocean.
But there's still a chance you're wrong, he told himself. You don't really know any of this; you're only assuming it. All you really know is that it could be the greatest piece of illusion since Thurston, you know why it could have been done, and how it could have been done, but there's no proof whatever that is was done. The cabin was lit up by another long flash of lightning, and the thunderclap came almost on the heels of it. A faint breeze came in the porthole now, with the smell of rain in it. Lightning flashed again, and the thunder was a sharp, cracking explosion that was very near.
I was carried away by And the Deep Blue Sea through the 80% mark. Though Charles Williams avoids vulgar language or stylized bloodletting that Quentin Tarantino embraces, the filmmaker's fingerprints are all over this, certainly his western The Hateful Eight. Here we also have isolated travelers, a crime, someone or someones who aren't who they say they are and a hunt for the killer while Mother Nature kicks up her heels. Like any great mystery, the location of the body informs the reader about the culture of where the crime occurred: a freighter in international waters. Williams knows his territory. His story structure, characters, dialogue and descriptions are jeweled.
Goddard pointed out that single-handed passages in small boats were commonplace by sailors of all maritime nations and sanctioned by yacht clubs, and that there had been a number of single-handed races across the Atlantic. There was a difference between a competent seaman going to sea in a sound boat and some nut going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He stopped when he realized he was wasting his breath.
"But you did lose your boat," Steen said. "And it's just the Lord's infinite mercy you're alive. Your passport was lost too, I suppose?"
"Yes," Goddard replied. "Somehow it didn't seem important at the time."
"Very unfortunate." Steen frowned and tapped on the pad with his pencil. "There will be complications, you realize, and a great deal of red tape."
Goddard sighed. "Captain, every maritime nation on earth has machinery for processing shipwrecked and castaway seamen."
"Yes, I know that. But you are not a seaman, legally, signed on to the articles of a merchant vessel. To the Philippine authorities you will simply be an alien without identification, visa, or money. This places the company in the position of having to post bond."
I'll be a sad son of a bitch, Goddard thought. "I am sorry, Captain. I guess it was selfish and inconsiderate of me to swim over here and hail you that way."
Captain Steen was pained, but forgiving. "I think you'll agree that was uncalled for, Mr. Goddard. We are very happy to have been the instruments of Providence, but the formalities and red tape are something we have to take into account. Now, about your arrangements on here; you can continue in the hospital where you are now and eat with the deck crew's mess, but you won't be required to work passage--"
"Thank you."
"--unless you feel you'd rather, of course. The bos'n can always use an extra hand, and I am sure you wouldn't want them to carry you for cigarettes and toilet articles you will need."
"But I understand you carry passengers." Goddard's voice was still quiet, but there was a hard edge to it. "And the cabins are not all sold. I'll take one, at the full rate from Callao to Manila."
This earned him a pale but condescending smile. "Passage has to be paid in advance. And I'm afraid I have no authority to change the company rule."
Williams keeps the novel humming with suspense and surprises, sharing his knowledge of merchant seafaring every step of the way. By introducing Goddard as a castaway, I had a vested interest in wanting to see him through the story, even if he does seem a bit like an author stand-in: handsome, prestigious, adventurous and unable for women to resist. When the last fifth of the novel descends into a big raid, I grew bored, able to see the end coming as the book devolved into an action adventure. I had a fun time with the atmospheric mystery that led up to that, though, and look forward to shipping out with Charles Williams again.
The novel takes place in present day and begins with Harry Goddard in a tight spot. Forty-five years old, divorced and childless following the death of his daughter five months ago, things couldn't seem to get much worse for the man until the thirty-two-foot sloop Shoshone he was sailing solo across the Pacific hits an obstruction and goes down in half an hour. Adrift in a raft intended for skin-diving expeditions, he has no oars, no sail and no food. The only water on board is what remains in a Jack Daniels bottle Goddard kept in the cockpit. Death by thirst seems likely until he wakes in the night to spot an old freighter dead in the water a mile away.
The Leander carries a crew of thirty and passengers numbering four. Madeleine Lennox is a randy fifty-year-old widow of a U.S. Navy captain getting her sails hoisted by a beefcake steward. Thirty-four-year-old Karen Brooke is headed to Manila for a job with her father's steamship company. Egerton is a sixty-five-year-old Limey and retired colonel. Krasicki is a Pole who's taken ill in his cabin. The engines stopped to allow a hot bearing to cool, Karen is stargazing on the boat deck when she spots a man in the water. She alerts the captain and Goddard is rescued. Ship's mate Lind, the very tall, very capable executive officer, takes care of the new passenger.
It was called the hospital but it was only a spare room on the lower deck that had originally housed the gun crew when the Leander was built and put into service toward the end of World War II. It contained four bunks, a washbasin, some metal lockers, and a small desk. Naked and still dripping, Goddard was seated on one of the lower bunks toweling himself after the ecstasy of a freshwater shower, knowing that any minute now the reaction would hit him and he'd collapse like a dropped souffle. Lind had just come back from somewhere, and the passageway outside was still jammed with crew members peering in.
Word had already spread that he'd been sailing a small boat single-handed across the Pacific, and as they grinned and voiced their congratulations and the cheerful but inevitable opinion of working seamen that anybody who'd sail anything across the --ing ocean just for the fun of it ought to have his --ing head examined, they tossed in on the other lower bunk a barrage of spare gear includig several pairs of shorts, some slides, a new toothbrush in a plastic tube, toothpaste, cigarettes, matches and a pair of dungarees. A young Filipino in white trousers and a singlet pushed his way through the jam with a tray containing cold cuts, potato salad, bread, fruit, and a pitcher of milk.
Goddard discovers their Captain Steen is a Bible pounder and nickel pincher worried about the paperwork that the castaway's arrival will generate. Goddard reveals himself to be a movie producer and has the ship's wireless operator contact his attorneys to wire the shipping company the money to cover his passage and expenses. Assembled in the dining room, Goddard meets the other passengers, thanking Karen for saving his life. He even draws the reclusive Krasicki out of his cabin. The Pole, getting a look at his fellow passengers, seems to recognize Egerton and grows agitated. He returns with a Czech automatic and shoots the Limey twice, killing him.
While Lind speaks German, he is unable to get a lucid answer from Krasicki about why he murdered Egerton. Lind and Goddard remove Egerton's eyepatch and discover the eye underneath to be perfectly normal, indicating he might have been traveling under a disguise and was not be who he claimed to be. Lind recalls that Krasicki was a Polish Army POW in 1939 and had been shuffling around South America as a timber surveyor. With no next of kin, Egerton is buried at sea, and as Goddard, Karen and Madeleine discuss the shooting in front of Lind, it occurs to the movie producer that what they witnessed seemed almost staged.
Goddard's first prediction--that Krasicki will meet with a tragic death--comes true when the prisoner is found hanging in his cabin. Goddard realizes that if he takes his suspicions to the captain he risks becoming the next passenger to meet with an accident. When Madeleine confides she has suspicions about Egerton's death, the producer keeps his cards close to the vest, not knowing if he can trust her either. Lind shares with him a radiogram from the Buenos Aires police revealing that "Egerton" was Hugo Mayr, a Nazi war criminal believed dead. Goddard is certain now that the shooting they witnessed was staged and the conspirators are still on board.
Lind was the ship's doctor, and with an imagination of that order there'd be no dearth of illuminating detail to enter in the log as to cause of death. Found dead in bunk of obvious cardiac arrest. Went to bed drunk, set mattress afire with cigarette, and suffocated. Suffered severe concussion in fall, and died two days later without regaining consciousness. With enough morphine in him to kill a rhinoceros. The findings would be subject to review by higher medical authority, of course, except for the minor difficulty that the body was buried in the ooze five miles down in the Pacific Ocean.
But there's still a chance you're wrong, he told himself. You don't really know any of this; you're only assuming it. All you really know is that it could be the greatest piece of illusion since Thurston, you know why it could have been done, and how it could have been done, but there's no proof whatever that is was done. The cabin was lit up by another long flash of lightning, and the thunderclap came almost on the heels of it. A faint breeze came in the porthole now, with the smell of rain in it. Lightning flashed again, and the thunder was a sharp, cracking explosion that was very near.
I was carried away by And the Deep Blue Sea through the 80% mark. Though Charles Williams avoids vulgar language or stylized bloodletting that Quentin Tarantino embraces, the filmmaker's fingerprints are all over this, certainly his western The Hateful Eight. Here we also have isolated travelers, a crime, someone or someones who aren't who they say they are and a hunt for the killer while Mother Nature kicks up her heels. Like any great mystery, the location of the body informs the reader about the culture of where the crime occurred: a freighter in international waters. Williams knows his territory. His story structure, characters, dialogue and descriptions are jeweled.
Goddard pointed out that single-handed passages in small boats were commonplace by sailors of all maritime nations and sanctioned by yacht clubs, and that there had been a number of single-handed races across the Atlantic. There was a difference between a competent seaman going to sea in a sound boat and some nut going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He stopped when he realized he was wasting his breath.
"But you did lose your boat," Steen said. "And it's just the Lord's infinite mercy you're alive. Your passport was lost too, I suppose?"
"Yes," Goddard replied. "Somehow it didn't seem important at the time."
"Very unfortunate." Steen frowned and tapped on the pad with his pencil. "There will be complications, you realize, and a great deal of red tape."
Goddard sighed. "Captain, every maritime nation on earth has machinery for processing shipwrecked and castaway seamen."
"Yes, I know that. But you are not a seaman, legally, signed on to the articles of a merchant vessel. To the Philippine authorities you will simply be an alien without identification, visa, or money. This places the company in the position of having to post bond."
I'll be a sad son of a bitch, Goddard thought. "I am sorry, Captain. I guess it was selfish and inconsiderate of me to swim over here and hail you that way."
Captain Steen was pained, but forgiving. "I think you'll agree that was uncalled for, Mr. Goddard. We are very happy to have been the instruments of Providence, but the formalities and red tape are something we have to take into account. Now, about your arrangements on here; you can continue in the hospital where you are now and eat with the deck crew's mess, but you won't be required to work passage--"
"Thank you."
"--unless you feel you'd rather, of course. The bos'n can always use an extra hand, and I am sure you wouldn't want them to carry you for cigarettes and toilet articles you will need."
"But I understand you carry passengers." Goddard's voice was still quiet, but there was a hard edge to it. "And the cabins are not all sold. I'll take one, at the full rate from Callao to Manila."
This earned him a pale but condescending smile. "Passage has to be paid in advance. And I'm afraid I have no authority to change the company rule."
Williams keeps the novel humming with suspense and surprises, sharing his knowledge of merchant seafaring every step of the way. By introducing Goddard as a castaway, I had a vested interest in wanting to see him through the story, even if he does seem a bit like an author stand-in: handsome, prestigious, adventurous and unable for women to resist. When the last fifth of the novel descends into a big raid, I grew bored, able to see the end coming as the book devolved into an action adventure. I had a fun time with the atmospheric mystery that led up to that, though, and look forward to shipping out with Charles Williams again.
January 24, 2025
Harry Goddard, a sailor-movie producer finds himself drifting in the high seas in a rubber raft with just a Jack Daniels bottle (filled with water, not whiskey) for company, after his boat the Shoeshone goes down. Harry has given up hope, reminiscing about his life, his wife and deceased daughter. But then, The SS Leander comes into view and against all odds, Harry is rescued. Things are rosy on the new ship. Harry buys six bottles of Beefeater gin, rents a cabin and Madeline Lennox, a 51 year old widow takes a liking to him. Karen Brooke, a beautiful melancholic woman, who helped rescue Harry is also on the ship. The possibilities are endless.
But in a Hitchcockian turn of events, there is a murder on the Leander. A sick Polish passenger murders a gentlemanly Englishman. But Harry, the movie producer, suspects the murder was staged misdirection to hoodwink the passengers on the ship and hide the true identity of the murdered Englishman who could be a notorious Nazi on the run.
Though this book is sleazy as hell, it reminded me of Hitchcock's thrillers like Lifeboat and The Lady Vanishes where a bunch of people are locked in together on a boat/train and nothing or nobody is what they seem to be.
The first hundred pages of this book are fantastic. The novel is off to a great start with cinematic descriptions of Harry out in the sea on a raft. Williams is a master at creating a tense, erotic and suspenseful atmosphere and he is at his best here. But when things descend into chaotic over the top action, the last 75 pages do not measure up to the book's first half. Some of the sailing jargon and parts of the ship during the action scenes were a bit tough to read. But Williams' description of the sea and life on a ship is bound to invoke daydreams among the squares. What amazing times he must have had as a sailor. It made me feel like I was in the wrong profession.
And the Deep Blue Sea is another cleverly plotted nautical thriller from Charles Williams with vivid descriptions of the sea, interesting social commentary, sexy women and weird flashbacks. Like when Harry is thrown off the Leander with Karen and they are floating around in the sea, awaiting death, Williams takes us to Harry's past with weird conversations about whalers, airports, bars and lemmings which he has with his first wife. I really did not know where that came from. This book was written towards the end of Williams' career when his book sales were falling. Maybe that is the reason why there is some truly weird and over the top sleazy stuff in this book.
But in a Hitchcockian turn of events, there is a murder on the Leander. A sick Polish passenger murders a gentlemanly Englishman. But Harry, the movie producer, suspects the murder was staged misdirection to hoodwink the passengers on the ship and hide the true identity of the murdered Englishman who could be a notorious Nazi on the run.
Though this book is sleazy as hell, it reminded me of Hitchcock's thrillers like Lifeboat and The Lady Vanishes where a bunch of people are locked in together on a boat/train and nothing or nobody is what they seem to be.
The first hundred pages of this book are fantastic. The novel is off to a great start with cinematic descriptions of Harry out in the sea on a raft. Williams is a master at creating a tense, erotic and suspenseful atmosphere and he is at his best here. But when things descend into chaotic over the top action, the last 75 pages do not measure up to the book's first half. Some of the sailing jargon and parts of the ship during the action scenes were a bit tough to read. But Williams' description of the sea and life on a ship is bound to invoke daydreams among the squares. What amazing times he must have had as a sailor. It made me feel like I was in the wrong profession.
And the Deep Blue Sea is another cleverly plotted nautical thriller from Charles Williams with vivid descriptions of the sea, interesting social commentary, sexy women and weird flashbacks. Like when Harry is thrown off the Leander with Karen and they are floating around in the sea, awaiting death, Williams takes us to Harry's past with weird conversations about whalers, airports, bars and lemmings which he has with his first wife. I really did not know where that came from. This book was written towards the end of Williams' career when his book sales were falling. Maybe that is the reason why there is some truly weird and over the top sleazy stuff in this book.
January 24, 2025
A couple of years ago I stumbled across a Robert Mitchum quote about his early films: "We called them B pictures. We didn't have the money, we didn't have the sets, we didn't have the lights, we didn't have the time. What we did have were some pretty good stories." (I think it's from an interview with Roger Ebert)
Reading a Charles Williams novel always reminds me of this quote. He's such a darn good storyteller, it doesn't matter that the plot is contrived (a solitary sailor survives the sinking of his ship in a minuscule rubber boat, without clothes, food and water, yet he is picked up after only three days by a passing cargo ship, right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean) or that the characters are barely fleshed out - you get caught in the action and breathlessly turn the pages from one cliffhanger scene to the next. Williams style is very cinematic, with snappy dialogue, risque innuendoes, compact mise-en-scene (all of the novel takes place aboard the cargo ship) and clear directions for the movements of the actors. The best comparison I can make for And The Deep Blue Sea is Bruce Willis in one of his Die Hard roles, or Steven Segal in one of his early issues ( Under Siege , because it also takes place on a ship) : action-adventure with plenty of bare knuckle fights and machine gun bursts. Plus some lovely, if politically incorrect, dames as eye candy.
His name was Harry Goddard, he was forty-five years old, divorced, childless for the past five months, and until the last of his luck ran out two days ago he had been single-handing across the Pacific in the thirty-foot sloop Shoshone for reasons he wasn't sure of himself except that the horizon provided a sort of self-renewing objective if you no longer had any other.
Harry Goddard gets a second chance at life when one of the passengers on the cargo ship Leander miraculously spots his lifeboat in a patch of moonlight. But it soon becomes apparent that Leander is not what it seems, and as the dead bodies start to pile up, Harry starts to feel like he has been cast in a bad movie with a script written by an unknown madman. He might have been safer left to drift on the empty ocean.
The movie references are not accidental, as Goddard, beside being an alcoholic wreck in the middle of an existential crisis after the accidental death of his only daughter, is also a former Hollywood producer and knows everything there is to know about setting up and directing a scene, about creating illusions through clever editing and misdirections. But who has written the script? My favorite parts of the novel are Harry internal monologues, witty and imaginative, touching on modern lifestyle and alienation, on love and relationships. The action scenes are pretty good also, gory but with a healthy dose of black humour (hence the Bruce Willis connection).
The two woman leads, the diabolic Madeleine Lennox and the angelic Karen Brooke, made me squirm a little in the beginning, as they are introduced basically as sexual objects. I actually liked them, but I'm shallow that way, even as I acknowledge they remain rather typical of the 1950's testosterone dominated society and may induce an angry reaction among militant feminists. The real danger the ladies are exposed to, their stalwart resilience and the touch of humour that informs their sex appeal combined to make me more favorably disposed towards them in the end. The bad guys, that I will not name, are also rather stereotypical of action movies: one overconfident mastermind and a bunch of mostly stupid minions with plenty of muscle and firepower.
I should probably rate this a 3 star, as fun but mostly mindless escapism, requiring little participation from the reader, but I've read a lot of modern thrillers that are extremely ambitious and complex, yet fail to achieve the streamlined presentation and the compulsive pacing of this classic adventure. So 4 stars, and I hope more people rediscover these almost forgotten gems (only 1 review and 11 ratings? Probably the book was unavailable before the recent wave of ebook reprints)
Reading a Charles Williams novel always reminds me of this quote. He's such a darn good storyteller, it doesn't matter that the plot is contrived (a solitary sailor survives the sinking of his ship in a minuscule rubber boat, without clothes, food and water, yet he is picked up after only three days by a passing cargo ship, right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean) or that the characters are barely fleshed out - you get caught in the action and breathlessly turn the pages from one cliffhanger scene to the next. Williams style is very cinematic, with snappy dialogue, risque innuendoes, compact mise-en-scene (all of the novel takes place aboard the cargo ship) and clear directions for the movements of the actors. The best comparison I can make for And The Deep Blue Sea is Bruce Willis in one of his Die Hard roles, or Steven Segal in one of his early issues ( Under Siege , because it also takes place on a ship) : action-adventure with plenty of bare knuckle fights and machine gun bursts. Plus some lovely, if politically incorrect, dames as eye candy.
His name was Harry Goddard, he was forty-five years old, divorced, childless for the past five months, and until the last of his luck ran out two days ago he had been single-handing across the Pacific in the thirty-foot sloop Shoshone for reasons he wasn't sure of himself except that the horizon provided a sort of self-renewing objective if you no longer had any other.
Harry Goddard gets a second chance at life when one of the passengers on the cargo ship Leander miraculously spots his lifeboat in a patch of moonlight. But it soon becomes apparent that Leander is not what it seems, and as the dead bodies start to pile up, Harry starts to feel like he has been cast in a bad movie with a script written by an unknown madman. He might have been safer left to drift on the empty ocean.
The movie references are not accidental, as Goddard, beside being an alcoholic wreck in the middle of an existential crisis after the accidental death of his only daughter, is also a former Hollywood producer and knows everything there is to know about setting up and directing a scene, about creating illusions through clever editing and misdirections. But who has written the script? My favorite parts of the novel are Harry internal monologues, witty and imaginative, touching on modern lifestyle and alienation, on love and relationships. The action scenes are pretty good also, gory but with a healthy dose of black humour (hence the Bruce Willis connection).
The two woman leads, the diabolic Madeleine Lennox and the angelic Karen Brooke, made me squirm a little in the beginning, as they are introduced basically as sexual objects. I actually liked them, but I'm shallow that way, even as I acknowledge they remain rather typical of the 1950's testosterone dominated society and may induce an angry reaction among militant feminists. The real danger the ladies are exposed to, their stalwart resilience and the touch of humour that informs their sex appeal combined to make me more favorably disposed towards them in the end. The bad guys, that I will not name, are also rather stereotypical of action movies: one overconfident mastermind and a bunch of mostly stupid minions with plenty of muscle and firepower.
I should probably rate this a 3 star, as fun but mostly mindless escapism, requiring little participation from the reader, but I've read a lot of modern thrillers that are extremely ambitious and complex, yet fail to achieve the streamlined presentation and the compulsive pacing of this classic adventure. So 4 stars, and I hope more people rediscover these almost forgotten gems (only 1 review and 11 ratings? Probably the book was unavailable before the recent wave of ebook reprints)
March 9, 2021
After his sailboat went down, leaving him with nothing but a rubber dinghy and a bottle of whiskey, Harry Goddard should have known it was all over. There wasn’t much left. Once a renowned movie producer. He was now forty-five, divorced, childless since his only daughter drove her Porsche over a guardrail, seeing her parents’ lives fall apart. His luck had just plumb wore out. “The only hell was the certainty that it was coming.” “Well, he thought, you wanted solitude; you’ve got it.” After thirst and the sun beat him down for days, rescue finally came in the form of a freighter, but, after getting on that doomed, cursed freighter, perhaps Goddard wished he had just taken the easy way and drowned.
This was a cursed freighter straight out of hell and with the craziest cast of characters you’ve ever seen. Besides the movie producer who had decided to all by his lonesome cast off around the world, you had a sick Polish crazy man who never left his cabin, Madeleine Lennox, a fifty-year-old widow with such a thirst for male attention that she booked passage on freighters where there would be no other competition- “No woman could be that unsubtle”, Karen Brooke, a thirty-four year old blonde whose very sight might cause havoc among the crew, Eric Lind, the giant mate, who ran the ship with an iron hand, and Captain Steen, known among the crew as Holy Joe, a booze-hater and a nickel-squealer. Shipping tons of cotton bales and booze to Manila with a crew of thirty men, the freighter seemed to have problem after problem with its engines and that was before there was a murder on board in front of five eyewitnesses, a burial at sea, a political conspiracy, two figures with a past history who never imagined they would meet again or under these conditions, and a mutiny the likes of which had never been seen.
Charles Williams apparently enjoyed writing nautical thrillers cause he wrote quite a few of them and wrote them well. “And The Deep Blue Sea” is a terrific story that takes the reader from the brink of one disaster to another. Goddard is the perfect hero, a bit of a Humphrey Bogart type who never meant to get involved, but now that he’s involved, well, that’s another story. Set in historical context, it is just a terrific load of fun, particularly given Williams’ knowledge of ships and the sea which comes through in his writing. It is such a good novel that is hard to put down once you start reading it. Good luck with that.
This was a cursed freighter straight out of hell and with the craziest cast of characters you’ve ever seen. Besides the movie producer who had decided to all by his lonesome cast off around the world, you had a sick Polish crazy man who never left his cabin, Madeleine Lennox, a fifty-year-old widow with such a thirst for male attention that she booked passage on freighters where there would be no other competition- “No woman could be that unsubtle”, Karen Brooke, a thirty-four year old blonde whose very sight might cause havoc among the crew, Eric Lind, the giant mate, who ran the ship with an iron hand, and Captain Steen, known among the crew as Holy Joe, a booze-hater and a nickel-squealer. Shipping tons of cotton bales and booze to Manila with a crew of thirty men, the freighter seemed to have problem after problem with its engines and that was before there was a murder on board in front of five eyewitnesses, a burial at sea, a political conspiracy, two figures with a past history who never imagined they would meet again or under these conditions, and a mutiny the likes of which had never been seen.
Charles Williams apparently enjoyed writing nautical thrillers cause he wrote quite a few of them and wrote them well. “And The Deep Blue Sea” is a terrific story that takes the reader from the brink of one disaster to another. Goddard is the perfect hero, a bit of a Humphrey Bogart type who never meant to get involved, but now that he’s involved, well, that’s another story. Set in historical context, it is just a terrific load of fun, particularly given Williams’ knowledge of ships and the sea which comes through in his writing. It is such a good novel that is hard to put down once you start reading it. Good luck with that.
May 15, 2023
07/2017
I could not finish this (& I had read over half), despite having loved every other Charles Williams book I've read. Despite this having amazing parts. It was his second to last novel, from the early 1970s. It probably is amazing.
I could not finish this (& I had read over half), despite having loved every other Charles Williams book I've read. Despite this having amazing parts. It was his second to last novel, from the early 1970s. It probably is amazing.
July 8, 2025
Enjoyed this nautical adventure and my first from Charles Williams. A castaway from a sunken yacht is saved by the crew of an old freighter, which also carried a few passengers. However, he seemed to trade one terrible predicament for another since this ship didn't seem to be safe. There seems to be some kind of conspiracy that he catches on to but is trying to keep quite so not endanger everyone else. Though it soon comes out, and deaths and other incidents start adding up. It ends up that this middle-aged Hollywood writer and producer castaway has to save the day if he can.
Recommended: It's well written and kept my interest throughout. This seems to be a later and lesser work from this author based on my little reading about it. Which definitely makes me want to read more from him.
Recommended: It's well written and kept my interest throughout. This seems to be a later and lesser work from this author based on my little reading about it. Which definitely makes me want to read more from him.
August 15, 2012
Charles Williams was a hard-boiled writer in the Jim Thompson mold in the fifties and sixties, responsible most notably for Dead Calm. Many of his stories had nautical themes, as he had been a merchant sailor. This one's about a shipwrecked yachtsman miraculously rescued in the Pacific by a Manila-bound freighter with something very shady going on on board. Good old-fashioned page-turner
June 8, 2015
I don't read a lot of fiction, but this author (Charles Williams) really knows what he's doing.
January 25, 2018
From 1971 and reading much more like an early 60s novel, this is an exciting plot-driven story of lone yachtsman, Harry Goddard, rescued from certain death by a merchant ship carrying a few passengers, two of whom are attractive women. A murder on board proves to be the catalyst for a series of events involving ex-Nazis and more time spent in the Pacific Ocean as a struggle for the ship ensues. Very much a pulp-style story but a superior one because of the vivid scene-setting and the creation of tension. A 3.5 read
January 24, 2025
And then there were only a few pages left for Poirot to come up with some important explanations and ... then there were none. -- There's a staged murder. Of someone with a fake identity. With a fake motive. There's the actual murder of the would-be murderer - staged as a suicide. There are many questions. Grand ones, such as: what is behind it all, what master plan is being carried out here? And particular ones. such as: why would someone stage his own murder under an assumed name? We get no answers to these questions. None whatsoever. How's that trick pulled off? Easy: by the end the main criminal and his point man are dead and - wouldn't you know it?! - they turn out to be the only two who knew what's what and didn't share any of that, willingly or inadvertently, with anyone. -- Including Poirot. And so: Poirot is left empty-handed. And thus are we, those readers who read crime stories expecting a plot that makes sense and leaves no loose ends to be tied up, a puzzle that comes with a satisfactory solution c.q. a thorough explanation based on exact reasoning. And no amount of humor or pithy writing (granted, four stars) will be able to make up for a plot that stinks. I feel had! Deceived! Defrauded - of my time. No more Williams for me.
P.S: Then there are the terrible inconsistencies. Take p. 103: "Somewhere in the depths of number three hold was a smoldering bale of cotton like a cancer cell (...) but unless he [the captain of the ship] had a fire-smothering system in the holds there wasn't much he could do about it but hold his breath and pray. If the burning bales were far down or in the center of the hold [it transpires that they are], trying to get water to them through thousands of others was futile, short of flooding the entire hold." Thus is presented the main threat that looms over all on board the seemingly doomed vessel which presents the stage of this failed crime mystery play. And yet, p.187: "They began to gain on it, and in an hour they knew they were going to win. The fire in the shelter deck was out, and three hoses were pouring tons of water into number three hold where there was now more smoke than fire." Just like that. (And without any special tricks: they just stick in those hoses, and Bob's your uncle.) Sloppy. Sloppiness kills a whodunit.
P.S: Then there are the terrible inconsistencies. Take p. 103: "Somewhere in the depths of number three hold was a smoldering bale of cotton like a cancer cell (...) but unless he [the captain of the ship] had a fire-smothering system in the holds there wasn't much he could do about it but hold his breath and pray. If the burning bales were far down or in the center of the hold [it transpires that they are], trying to get water to them through thousands of others was futile, short of flooding the entire hold." Thus is presented the main threat that looms over all on board the seemingly doomed vessel which presents the stage of this failed crime mystery play. And yet, p.187: "They began to gain on it, and in an hour they knew they were going to win. The fire in the shelter deck was out, and three hoses were pouring tons of water into number three hold where there was now more smoke than fire." Just like that. (And without any special tricks: they just stick in those hoses, and Bob's your uncle.) Sloppy. Sloppiness kills a whodunit.
July 6, 2023
An excellent seafaring book by San Angelo, Texas born Charles Williams. I don’t know why he wasn’t more highly acclaimed. His writing style is fast-paced and energetic and the creative storyline carried me with him to the end.
Maybe Williams’s character development could have been better and just maybe his treatment of the 2 women passengers on the cargo ship that rescues Harry Goddard from certain drowning could have been a bit less chauvinistic but . . . I gave it a pass mainly because I couldn’t put the book down.
It’s a bit of an adventure itself finding a copy of his book at a reasonable rate. My brother Jack tells me his novel Dead Calm is even better than this one. And he also says it’s much better than the Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill movie of the same name. We’ll see because I have it handy ready to read. Thanks, Jack - good recommendation.
Maybe Williams’s character development could have been better and just maybe his treatment of the 2 women passengers on the cargo ship that rescues Harry Goddard from certain drowning could have been a bit less chauvinistic but . . . I gave it a pass mainly because I couldn’t put the book down.
It’s a bit of an adventure itself finding a copy of his book at a reasonable rate. My brother Jack tells me his novel Dead Calm is even better than this one. And he also says it’s much better than the Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill movie of the same name. We’ll see because I have it handy ready to read. Thanks, Jack - good recommendation.
May 8, 2017
Coincidences hurt the start of this story; the second half was stronger.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
September 12, 2016
I liked the story line, but there were a lot of references that made no sense to me, music, books, quotes from I'm not sure where. The story was written in 1971, so it's possible they were just before my time. Kind of a James Bond kind of story where the hero is invincible, but hard to put down once the action started.
June 17, 2023
Continuous rabid action
Well written and well paced story about guts, resourcefulness, and sang froid. A terrific read. I find Williams' style does not get in the way of the story, as it does with a few noire writers.
Well written and well paced story about guts, resourcefulness, and sang froid. A terrific read. I find Williams' style does not get in the way of the story, as it does with a few noire writers.
June 3, 2018
This was a great, adventurous little book... I loved the premise of the story... would make a great movie...
April 4, 2014
Good ... noir-ish crime fiction.
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