I think of the turtles swimming steadily against the current all the way to Ascension. I think of them swimming through all that golden-green water over the dark, over the chill of the deeps and the jaws of the dark. And I think of the sun over the water, the sun through the water, the eye holding the sun, being held by it with no thought and only the rhythm of the going, the steady wing-strokes of the flippers in the water. Then it doesn’t seen hard to believe. It seems the only way to do it, the only way in fact to be : swimming, swimming, the eye held by the sun, no sharks in the mind, nothing in the mind.

Two strangers, William G. and Neaera H., become obsessed with freeing the sea turtles at London Zoo, and the head reptile keeper agrees to help them do it. Both lonely and living aimless lives, they are gripped by the long journey of the sea turtles across the oceans, and the fact that the turtles know exactly where they are going and can navigate their way across vast oceans to one particular small island. It is quite a sad book, about two people whose plotting doesn’t bring them closer together, as they realise that they are too similar to be a good fit, but by the end of the book there are some hopeful signs for their future. I enjoyed it a lot. ( )

The turtles in London Zoo become the mutual obsession of two lonely strangers who dream of setting free the turtles and themselves. Detail by detail their diaries record a world in which thought leads to action and action brings William G. and Neaera H. to their own open sea.

Every Russell Hoban is different. This is a charming fictional "Free Willy" story of liberation of turtles from the London Zoo.