River of Smoke

In September 1838 a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the ‘Ibis’, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared – two lascars, two convicts and one of the passengers. Did the same storm upend the fortunes of those aboard the ‘Anahita’, an opium carrier heading towards Canton? And what fate befell those aboard the ‘Redruth’, a sturdy two-masted brig heading East out of Cornwall? Was it the storm that altered their course or were the destinies of these passengers at the mercy of even more powerful forces?