Nine years ago The Innocent Voyage (later retitled High Wind in Jamaica) won a great critical ovation and a loyal body of rooters for its author. Now, after an interim in which Mr. Hughes gave us only short stories, comes this new novel. It is not a novel in the accepted sense, but a yarn of the sea in turmoil, of a cargo steamer caught in a hurricane in the Caribbean, of the men who were her officers and her crew and of how they reacted separately and collectively to the terrific perils and the challenge to their courage and their seamanship. There is a paucity of detail that makes the book essentially a book for those who know by personal experience the technical side of running a single-screw turbine steamer; but somehow the sweep of the narrative carries even the veriest landlubber along. This is essentially the story of five days of battle, of ultimate salvage -- and of the aftermath. A grand book, so far as it goes, but it does not seem quite enough. One feels that there should be either more -- or less. Be that as it may, it is a certain sale for all your sea book market -- and for others who like stark adventure of man against the elements. Superbly written.