Tens of thousands of people now live permanently on the high seas, out of the reach of governments, moving with the winds and currents from place to place, living on their own terms. The choices are ours to make. Only the past is written. We control the future.
Acknowledgements
I finished the final edits of this novel in one of my favourite places in the world, a little hideaway in the south-west of Western Australia, where we camp and swim in the river and walk the deserted coastline. To have such places to visit and spend time in, I am truly grateful. To paraphrase one of my favourite authors, the world is a beautiful place, and worth fighting for. This small contribution to that fight is made inestimably better by the efforts and insights of my fabulous publisher Karen, my editor, James, my agent, Broo, and Heidi, my wife of thirty years, to whom this book is dedicated. I couldn’t do it, any of it, without you. And thanks, finally and most importantly, to you, the reader. It is because of you, and the hope that this collection of words may, in some small way, connect with something special within you, that I write.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Canadian Paul Hardisty has spent twenty-five years working all over the world as an engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a, and was one of the last Westerners out of Yemen before the outbreak of the 1994 civil war. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
The first three novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear and Reconciliation for the Dead all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger.
Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, conservation volunteer, and lives in Western Australia.
Follow him on Twitter @Hardisty_Paul.
Copyright
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books 2018
Copyright © Paul E. Hardisty 2018
Paul E. Hardisty has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–912374–13–7
eISBN 978–1–912374–14-4
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For sales and distribution, please contact [email protected]
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