The Wrecker
1892
Loudon Dodd is an artist who should be painting masterpieces in Paris, but instead he's running supplies to remote Pacific islands and getting entangled in the shadowy world of 'wrecking' - the lucrative business of salvaging ships that meet their end on coral reefs. When a mysterious schooner appears in the harbor of Tai-o-hae and the abandoned wreck of the Flying Scud is discovered at Midway Island, Dodd finds himself at the center of an adventure that blends high comedy, maritime intrigue, and a mystery that demands solving. Stevenson's prose crackles with the anarchic energy of a man writing purely for pleasure, filling the Pacific islands with rogues, dreamers, and sharp-tongued traders who speak in relentless, brilliant dialogue. The Wrecker is less a novel with a plot than a headlong tumble through a world where anything can happen - and usually does. It endures because it captures the sheer irresponsible joy of storytelling, the pleasure of being swept somewhere wild and far from respectable civilization.
