The North Water, McGuire - B +

                                               One of the very favorable reviews of this novel suggests the author's style is a cross between Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy - pretty heady stuff. The story is of a cursed mid-19th century English whaling voyage to the Arctic. The two primary antagonists are a disgraced opium-addicted surgeon, Sumner, and a murderous beast, Drax. The ship is intended to be scuttled in an insurance fraud and everything goes wrong after they lose the ship. Some open water whale-boating brings a dozen men to a Canadian island on Baffin Bay as the summer winds down. Drax escapes by murdering two Yaks and taking their sleigh. Sumner survives when some natives find him and bring him south to a mission. Both men make it back to England, where they face off for the last time.