"The Mary Deare was a floating deathtrap of rattling rivets and clanging plates, a piece of leaking ironmongery taken off the junk heap of the China Seas. This novel is the story of her last voyage... Conspiracy, theft, murder - crimes cunningly contrived, with the guilt laid on a blameless man desperate to prove his innocence. And all of it brought to light when the curiosity of a yachtsman made him board what seemed an abandoned hulk.