The year is somewhere in the early 1900s, and wireless telegraphy is brand new, almost magical. Twelve-year-old Jack Ready has just been appointed Chief Wireless Operator aboard the luxury liner Tropic Queen, with his assistant Sam Smalley at his side. Together they hold the ship's only connection to the outside world, the invisible threads that tie them to shore. Then the storm warnings start coming in. And there's something wrong about passenger James Jarrold - too interested in messages from a yacht called the Endymion, too nervous when the wireless crackles to life. When a distress call cuts through the static, Jack and Sam must decode its meaning before the Tropic Queen vanishes into the hurricane's darkness. Goldfrap knows how to build genuine tension, and the period setting gives the story an extra layer of wonder: this was the age when wireless was miracles and mystery.
