Idealistic student Angel Kelly sets sail from Liverpool with the intention of creating a Utopian commune in Brazil only to find his ship is carrying a cargo of slaves. After a mutiny he finds himself stranded on the coast of Latin America. He is then caught in an epic and violent tale of greed, revenge and love. At times savage and comic, this is a wild and dark tale, a strange mixture of blood and beauty.
Above Angel’s head, a man was climbing up the foremast, manoeuvring upwards in the harness he sat in. It dizzied Angel to see the soles of this man’s feet so far above him and he leant, blinking, across the bulwarks and stared again at the seething membrane of the ocean, and he was almost comforted by how close the perimeters of the horizon were, how narrow the world was, naught but a little sphere flitting through the heavens – it held no secrets.
