It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunters eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour...
The story of Larry Mathews and his dog Sambo, forecastle mates on the tramp steamer "Creole trader", New Orleans to the South seas.
What was that strange chest buried in the coal scuttle? What's being smuggled? Or...