Nevil Shute · 1960 · global

Nevil Shute's last novel, published in 1960. Keith Stewart makes model engines in a basement in West Ealing and writes them up for a hobbyist magazine. When his sister and her husband are wrecked in the Pacific, leaving him their daughter and a fortune in diamonds still in the hull, he sets off for an atoll east of Tahiti with almost no money and no idea how to get there.

1. 1
   West Ealing

   Keith Stewart lives in half a house in West Ealing, builds miniature machinery in the basement and writes it up for the Miniature Mechanic - a man of no importance, except to several thousand model engineers worldwide.

2. 2
   Honolulu

   With his sister and brother-in-law drowned and their daughter now his, Keith works his passage as far as Honolulu on a cargo aircraft - twelve thousand miles from the wreck, out of money, and with no notion of the next leg.

3. 3
   Tahiti

   An American boatbuilder sailing his own craft to Tahiti takes him on as crew for the passage south - one of a chain of engineers who know Keith's articles and turn out, at every stage, to be willing to help.

4. 4
   The Tuamotus

   The yacht lies on a reef three hundred miles east of Tahiti, and Keith dives the wreck for the packet cast into the concrete of the keel - then sets a headstone over his sister and her husband before he leaves.

5. 5
   Seattle

   He comes home by way of Washington state, solving a lumber mill's machining problem for a correspondent on the way - and returns to Ealing considerably richer, and changes nothing whatever about how he lives.