Wood, James The Sealer

World War 2 novel about the pursuit of a German sea-raider, the fictitious steamship SEEADLER (Wood’s inspiration must have been prompted by the real-life World War 1 German raider SEEADLER, noted as being the only sailing ship to be used as an armed merchant ship raider during that conflict). Wood’s narrator is Scotsman James Fraser, a trawler fisherman turned merchant seaman, who, after surviving the sinking of his freighter out of a North Atlantic convoy, is recruited by the Royal Navy for a bit of “espionage.” In due course he finds himself in the wilds of South America’s Tierra del Fuego and the Straits of Magellan, the German raider’s probable home base. Though in the end Fraser is unsuccessful in tracking down the SEEADLER, Wood’s yarn is nonetheless an interesting one. He is particularly successful in conveying the weird, violent natural beauty of the storm tossed waters around South America’s southern tip. Note that this appears to be the first appearance of Wood’s continuing character James Fraser.