One of Stevenson's last completed novels although he wrote it with Lloyd Osborne. It's a cracker story - Wages of Fear meets Apocalypse Now as three down and outs on a Pacific Island get a second chance when a ship comes in with all the crew dead from fever. They plan to rob the ship, only to find out the cargo is dodgy, and wind up at an island run by a maniac. The climax looks to build to something awesome but after the drunk dude dies, that's it. It's a shame.
It's also got to be said this isn't very well written - florid and over the top. Was this Osborne more than Stevenson? Maybe that's why it isn't very well known.
Also there's a lot of racism that is typical of the time but hard to read - talk of n*ggers and Kanakas and so on, and they're all depersonalised too.
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