25 May, 1928: Over the frozen seas of the Arctic, an airship falls out the sky. Among the survivors is a young scientist on the verge of a discovery that will redefine physics.

3 October 1996: Through the dusty industrial towns of India's Great Trunk Road, a disgraced and disfigured female detective starts tracking a criminal syndicate whose tentacles spread from forgery to smuggling to piracy. Her life has been ruined, but she will have her revenge.

26 December 2004: On the island of Bali a tsunami washes up a rusting container. Locked within this aluminium tomb, the mummified remains of a shipping magnate missing for 29 years and a hand-written journal of his last days.

13 December 2011: Off the coast of Sri Lanka, a tramp steamer is seized by pirates. The captain has his wife and son aboard, and their survival depends on following the pirates' every demand. But what can they possibly want with his worn-out ship and its cargo of junk?

We know what they want. We know the ship was carrying a Dead Water cargo. And we know Dead Water is the key to everything. We could spin a thousand stories from this toxic Cold War secret but there's only one of them that can really make a difference. And this is it.

A novel of prodigious scope and ambition, ablaze with imaginative energy, brimming with incident [airship crashes, polar bear attacks - and that's just the first chapter - tsunamis, modern-day piracy, a toxic cold war secret and a djinn] rendered in mesmerizing prose with the raw intelligence of one of the sharpest, most original contemporary British writers.

About the Author
Simon Ings is a novelist (The Weight of Numbers, 2006) and science writer (The Eye, 2007). He lives in South London.

Reviews
THE WEIGHT OF NUMBERS * CRITICAL ACCLAIM: *
Dazzling, admirable narrative verve... It is unlikely there will be a finer written fiction this year * Guardian *
An ambitious, exciting novel.. unforgettable' * The Times *
A dynamic, innovative, and compelling book that brings into focus some of the most interesting trends in contemporary fiction * Daily Telegraph *
Simon Ings' ambitiously genre-defying novel is a virtuoso display of imaginative plotting * Financial Times *
Ings weaves an ingenious, shimmering web of contiguity and chance... a feat of meticulous plotting. * New Statesman *
One of the most exciting - and relevant - books of the last year. Booker material, for sure. * Arena *
A deceptively readable, dizzyingly constructed novel... Ing's mad, mad world is held together to the very last page by humour, vivid depictions and a deeply compelling emotional core * Publishers Weekly STARRED review *



Book Information
ISBN 9781848878884
Author Simon Ings
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Corvus
Publisher Atlantic Books
Weight(grams) 643g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 164mm * 32mm