The Riddle of the Sands (a novel set in the North Sea set aboard a yacht)
by Childers, Erskine
pub by IMP Press, Pleasantville, NY (imprint of Readers Digest), 2008 - also Penguin Classics edition ISBN 978-0143106326 - - originally published in 1903 -       - ISSN 1544-4007 which is the ISSN for the IMP press series -The Best Mysteries of All Time - - Note. also available through Project Gutenberg on the internet - - Contents p.iv - - Preface to the original Edition p.vii-ix - - Maps/Charts p. xii-xv - - Postscript (March 1903) p. 315 - - About the Author p. 317-320- - Total 320 pages.

This is an early spy novel, and good sailing story. It is set in the southern part of the North Sea along the Frisen islands, which are on the seacoast between Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Bremerhaven, Germany.
Erskine Childers, the author, was involved in the Boer war and in WWI and fought for Britain. He was a avid yachtsman author became an Irish natinalist and was convicted by an English court for having a pistol (during the time of the Irish revolution). He was executed on 24 November 1922, by firing squad. These facts as well as the quality of the writing in this work of fiction make this book a particulary interesting one. It is a good read.
~2008-01-01 ~

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