The Riddle of the Sands
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The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands *

4 reviews
Price:
$16.95

Description

 Subtitled A Record of Secret Service Recently Achieved

"The first modern thriller" --Ken Follet, author of Eye of the Needle, Column of Fire, and more. 

"First published in 1903, this classic relates the intrigue the unfolds when cruiser Arthur Davies asks his former Oxford classmate, an aristocrat known only as Carruthers to join him for duck shooting and yachting in the Baltic aboard the no-frills centerboard yawl DULCIBELLA. This odd couple mariner and sophisticate team to unravel a pre-World War I German plot from clues found in the shifting sands off Germany's coast." --Cruising World

This edition, recently brought back into print by the highly regarded publishing house David R. Godine, includes an introduction by Brig. E.F. Parker who talks about the author, who served as an artilleryman during the Boer War, and in the British Navy during WW1. Childers turned his support to the Irish Home Rule movement, smuggling arms to Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard. Childers was executed by firing squad in 1922 as a traitor to the British Empire. 

 

by Erskine Childers

softcover, 244 pp.

 

Customer Reviews

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S
Steven Dingman

The Riddle of the Sands

R
Robert E
The Riddle of The Sands

An excellent read

P
Pieter van Kuppenveld
Wadden Sea Sailing Lessons

Living on Huisduinen (Netherlands), a former Wadden Island at the west end of the Wadden Sea I'm sailing in this area for almost half a century. Childers realy knows what sailing in the wadden Sea is. The technics and circumstances he describes are true and for everybody a guide/introduction to this sailing ground. Also the topography of the German and Dutch Wadden Sea is correct, compliments for Childers.
The book is on board with me and many a crewmember was surprised by the accuracy of the book. And also glad to have an exiting book on bad weather days lying for anchor behind a drying sand on the Wadden Sea. I recommend it.
And also I don't know anything about a German plan for an invasion in England in the described way it is not a total illusion, it could be done that way in those times.

O
Oscar Kramer
Old favorite

I just finished reading this book a second time (with 20 years between readings), and it was even better. I just learned here that Childers was executed by firing squad -- by the British no less. Something confusing is that the book was published in 1903, a full ten years *before* the start of WWI. That's amazing prescience. Was he an intelligence officer after all? If so, he wouldn't have revealed this secret in 1903 though. Very interesting. In any case, this is a must-read for adventure-loving sailors.

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