The Raging Sea

Breaking out of a Mexican jail on the Day of the Dead in 1921, the ne'er-do-well sea captain Dugger, his lover Kate, and his engagingly sardonic first mate Nello set sail on their ketch for Tahiti. They carry two mysterious passengers: a defrocked Irish nun in search of her lost twin brother and a French spy hunting the unknown leader of an anticolonial uprising. Muddling their quest are fourteen tons of gold stolen from a church in Peru and hidden in a lagoon in the Tuamotous-a true story. Guided by Gauguin's Polynesian daughter, they navigate the spectacular South Seas and an ancient culture of beauty that is as brutal as it is benign. This entangled story of love, betrayal, and clashing civilizations ends in an apocalyptic convergence of unforeseen destinies. Ferenc Mate has reinvented a genre that hasn't been seen since London and Conrad: polished writing, humanism, and sheer adventure.