The Wager
By David Grann

The beauty ofand The Wagerand unfurls like a great sail... one of the finest nonfiction books I've ever read'and Guardianand The greatest sea story ever told'and Spectator A cracking yarn… Grann's taste for desperate predicaments finds its fullest expression here'and ObserverTHE INSTANTand NEW YORK TIMESand NO. 1 BESTSELLERand From the internationaland bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martialand that reveals a shocking truth.and On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's ship theand Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain.and While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, theand Wagerand was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.and Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell.and The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang.