The Riddle of the Sands
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season299 pages, about 6 hours: about the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbFour reviewers report the early sailing chapters dragging once Carruthers boards the Dulcibella.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 10 reviews from critics and book blogs, 7 credit the plot and 5 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesThe Christian Science Monitor places it in a line of spy fiction running through The Thirty-Nine Steps to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
The case for it
on the craft
“It is a tale of the puzzling out of a mystery which only gradually reveals itself, and not till the very end reaches its true magnificence; but its excitement begins on the first page, and there is a steady crescendo of interest. As for the characters, I think they are the most fully realized of any adventure story that I have met, and the atmosphere of grey northern skies and miles of yeasty water and wet sands is as masterfully reproduced as in any of Conrad’s.”
John Buchan · preface to the 1926 reissue of The Riddle of the Sands on Carruthers’ influence
“have had James Bond in quite the same way if we hadn’t had Carruthers first”
Ben Macintyre · Five Books, 2019 on the tidal setting
“a writer fascinated by the ephemeral conditions occurring at the meeting of water and land”
Margaret Cohen · Public Books, 2018 on Carruthers’ transformation
“the hilarious transformation of Carruthers from effete London club man to accomplished sailor”
a Substack review
The case against
on the later pages
“had been written a cheque that the rest of the book did not quite honour”
a Substack review on the sailing jargon
“the rest of the book is filled with sailing jargon and geography”
a book blog on the boat talk
“it was twenty thousand pages of boat stuff, and the guys talking about boats”
one star · a book blog on the romance
“little more than a few batted eyelashes between the supposed lovers”
a book blog
