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The Red Fathom
A sunken treasure lured them beyond adventure into terror and certain death.
Paperback
Published January 1, 1967
5 people want to read
About the author
Robert Edmond Alter
42 books9 followersRobert Edmond Alter is remembered chiefly for two novels, paperback originals from the 1960s: "Swamp Sister" (1961) and "Carny Kill" (1966). He also wrote children's novels and sold stories to some of the top magazines of his day, including the "Saturday Evening Post" and "Argosy". Alter died suddenly at the age of 40 (some sources state it was Cancer). Some of his later works were published for the first time many years after his death. He was survived by his wife, Maxine and his daughter Sand.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 3, 2023
This book was so much smarter than the skindiving potboiler I thought it would be.
Vern Rigby, shaken by seeing his friend eaten by a tiger shark, has fallen on hard times and signs up with a bunch of misfit treasure hunters to find a cache of jewels in a sunken ship in the middle of nowhere.
The real surprise for me was how Alter fleshed out each character, letting the reader sink into the backstories of every broken person on the ship. And they are all broken. Sex-crazed, alcoholic, greedy, guilty, ashamed, abused, bigoted, and wounded, each treasure-seeker has at least one emotional burden to weigh them down in the lonely, dark corners of the creaking ship.
One by one, members of the team show up missing or dead, and our hero Vern has to keep his wits about him—on the ship or deep inside wrecks on the seafloor—all while trying to overcome his inner demons.
The story takes place shortly after WWII, and many of the characters are veterans of that war, some from opposing sides. The realism with which Alter describes their memories of the war are pretty striking. I know Alter served in the military and I wonder if any of the more graphic scenes he penned here were based on experiences he or friends had. In fact, much of the book really smacks of the kinds of details that I assume only come from experience, like how it feels to ride out a typhoon or the minutiae of what bubbles look like at different water depths.
Off-putting to this 21st century reader is the fact that the book is rife with racial epithets. I get that these are dirty dudes who watched their friends get killed by Japanese soldiers, but the slurs got to be a little much. I almost took off a star because of it.
But the inner realities of these characters, the haunting descriptions of the undersea wrecks, and the heart-pounding final 30 pages really impressed me.
Vern Rigby, shaken by seeing his friend eaten by a tiger shark, has fallen on hard times and signs up with a bunch of misfit treasure hunters to find a cache of jewels in a sunken ship in the middle of nowhere.
The real surprise for me was how Alter fleshed out each character, letting the reader sink into the backstories of every broken person on the ship. And they are all broken. Sex-crazed, alcoholic, greedy, guilty, ashamed, abused, bigoted, and wounded, each treasure-seeker has at least one emotional burden to weigh them down in the lonely, dark corners of the creaking ship.
One by one, members of the team show up missing or dead, and our hero Vern has to keep his wits about him—on the ship or deep inside wrecks on the seafloor—all while trying to overcome his inner demons.
The story takes place shortly after WWII, and many of the characters are veterans of that war, some from opposing sides. The realism with which Alter describes their memories of the war are pretty striking. I know Alter served in the military and I wonder if any of the more graphic scenes he penned here were based on experiences he or friends had. In fact, much of the book really smacks of the kinds of details that I assume only come from experience, like how it feels to ride out a typhoon or the minutiae of what bubbles look like at different water depths.
Off-putting to this 21st century reader is the fact that the book is rife with racial epithets. I get that these are dirty dudes who watched their friends get killed by Japanese soldiers, but the slurs got to be a little much. I almost took off a star because of it.
But the inner realities of these characters, the haunting descriptions of the undersea wrecks, and the heart-pounding final 30 pages really impressed me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review