'Fascinating ... a brilliant entrée into the terrors, ardours, endeavours, hopeless valour and souls of those who have been written off ... Now, in a new age of people in peril and adrift on the world's seas, this magnificent novel - and the unexpected and intricate tragedies of its powerfully imagined characters - bespeaks this eternal injustice' THOMAS KENEALLY, bestselling author of Schindler's List