British novelist Hammond Innes was perhaps best known for his nautical mystery, The Wreck of the Mary Deare, which was made into a film starring Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. But the prolific writer, World War II veteran, and dedicated yachtsman wrote over thirty novels of adventure and suspense during his long career. The collected fiction gathered here follows three very different quests and spans the locales of Western Australia, the North Sea, and the Arabian Desert. Golden Soak: But the mine is empty, the land is dry, and the people of the desert feed on men like Falls. To make the fortune he craves, he must pull water from the sand-and gold from thin air. Rock: Stranded in a Russian port for weeks during World War II, Corporal James Vardy finally boards the Trikkala, hoping to return to England. But quickly he senses the vessel is doomed. Her officers are drunk, her lifeboats are leaky, and the mysterious crates supposedly carrying machine parts actually contain a fortune in silver bullion. On the North Sea, he realizes the ship is peeling away from its convoy, a suicidal decision that takes the Trikkala-and Vardy-directly into troubled waters. Also published in the United States as Gale Warnings. The Doomed Oasis: Col. Charles Stanley Whitaker is a legendary figure who made his fortune in the oil fields of the Arabian Desert, becoming more Bedouin than British. Three years ago, his illegitimate nineteen-year-old son, David Thomas, embarked on a quest to find him. Now, David has seemingly vanished into the desert. Unraveling the mystery of his disappearance will culminate in the oasis town of Saraifa, where water is as valuable as oil, and life can be cheap.
