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Summary: An incredible tale of shipwreck, tragedy and more.
Review: I rarely read novels - not even those about ships and the sea - preferring instead to read stories of real adventures - largely because fact is often stranger than fiction. As stories go, however, few can be stranger than that which followed the wrecking of the East Indiaman "Winterton" off Madagascar in August 1792. This is a story with all the ingredients one would expect to find in a novel - and more!In her book "Marked for Misfortune," Jean Hood recounts an epic tale (and epic it truly is) of how this ship with it's precious cargo of 300,000 silver dollars was wrecked on one of Madagascar's treacherous reefs, of how 300 of those who had survived so far clung to wreckage as it was swept towards a violent, surf tossed, shore and how 40 of their number perished in that surf, of how surviving officer John Dale set out for Mozambique in their only boat on a journey that should have taken him 5 weeks - only to return 7 months later to find half of those he had left behind had died from malaria. And if that is not enough, it doesn't end there - because on the way home they are captured by the French, twice! Those on board the Winterton in 1792 were indeed Marked for Misfortune from beginning to end and I congratulate Jean Hood on the enormous amount of research that has gone into a book which is so well written. I believe every diver who has ever visited, or intends to visit a shipwreck underwater, should read of the price paid by some of those who inadvertently created the object of their diving passion. NM
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