Coral Sea Calling

The treacherous and beautiful Coral Sea is the background for this story of the nineteenth century adventurers on perilous voyages into its waters in search of the bêche-de-mer and pearl shell; of the savage chiefs who ruled its islands; of the seamen who charted it; of the explorers struggling up the Queensland coast; a tale of the taming of the wilderness and its people....as in all Idriess books, there is always something good somewhere; and here it is the two chapters on Jemmy the Hook, who had had both hands chopped off by mutinous islander-crews, and who returned with iron hooks instead of hands to take a gruesome vengeance on yet another mutinous crew; it is a story which calls all the Idriess descriptive powers into play, and the reader avid of blood-and-guts can be assured of exactly that. - The Bulletin, 1957As so often in Australian letters, an initial fall into obscurity and harsh judgments of the literary establishment serve as good indicators of a writer’s pre-eminence. - Nicholas Rothwell, The Australian, 2017