Quill and Quire

REVIEWS

« Back to
Book Reviews

Hostile Seas: A Mission in Pirate Waters

by JL Savidge

In 2008, JL Savidge was a 33-year-old intelligence officer aboard the HMCS Ville de Québec, patrolling the Mediterranean on a NATO counter-terrorism mission. However, a call from Ottawa drastically changed the Ville de Québec’s mission, expected to be a relatively pleasant one with European ports of call and many chances to reconnect with friends and family. Instead, Savidge and her crew mates were reassigned to escort United Nations World Food Programme ships through the Gulf of Aden, where Somali piracy had begun to explode in force and frequency. It would be the first Canadian ship to perform this task.

Savidge is sympathetic and compassionate to the cause of the Somali pirates, even though it’s her job to combat them. She believes these men are not evil, but desperate. To elucidate the crippling poverty and threats of violence in present-day Somalia, she creates the character of Abdi, and imagines a fictional account of what could drive a young man like him to piracy.  If this aspect of the book sometimes feels strained, its purpose is nonetheless noble.   

Elsewhere, Hostile Seas details Savidge’s deep ambivalence about her military work, her struggles being a woman in a male-dominated field, and her quest for personal fulfillment. This part of the narrative resists sentimentality or nostalgia, adhering instead to strict factual retelling. This admirable style falls flat only when the author employs dialogue, which often feels stilted.

Savidge’s strength is her ability to convey life on a military vessel in clear, concise prose, allowing a reader unfamiliar with the subject matter to engage completely. The reader learns how deployment affects romantic and familial relationships, the challenges of living on board a ship, and the intense relief of a few hours ashore – a particularly poignant example is the joy Savidge feels simply walking on solid ground from one vessel to another. Hostile Seas gives a human face to extraordinary events going on very far from the safe haven of a Canadian reader’s home.

 

Reviewer: Heather Cromarty

Publisher: Dundurn Press

DETAILS

Price: $22.99

Page Count: 272 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-1-45971-937-8

Released: Oct.

Issue Date: 2014-1

Categories: Politics & Current Affairs