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|summary=A very readable and clever look at power and influence as well as ethical and moral issues aboard a small lifeboat in the mid-Atlantic with a memorable narrator who you might not like but will remain with you. Read before booking a Costa Cruise!

I've mentioned that Grace is unsettling - she's also not particularly likablelikeable. She claims in her narrative, and the reader will have to judge for themselves how reliable this is but the inference is probably not that much, to be indecisive and an outsider. Even before the events of the story, there is evidence that she craves the attention of others, particularly those in power, without particularly commanding it, but certainly not adverse to scheming her way in life. At times she comes over like Hamlet's more indecisive younger sister. She watches with envy the relationships and gossip of many of the, mostly female, lifeboat passengers. It's this plotting and scheming of the passengers and changing factions and power struggles that underpin the book. Reference is made to Hobbes's ''Leviathan'' and it's a very Hobbesian view of survival and power. What is sacrificed in terms of the novel is action scenes and the depth of characterization. Yet, Grace was so aloof that getting to know people was probably beneath her. Or is this all part of her scheming?