This is one of Shute's last novels, published in 1960. Whilst it's much more positive in tone than some of the others from the fifties, it still includes a few digs at his bête noire, the post-war British government. You don't have to be a born-again libertarian to enjoy it, though: it's primarily a celebration of craftsmanship as a unifying force that breaks through social and geographical barriers.

The central character, Keith Stewart, is a model engineer living a quiet life on the western fringes of London (where Shute grew up himself), who, without much money, has to make an epic journey to a remote Pacific island to retrieve his young niece's inheritance. En route, he receives assistance from fans of his articles in Miniature Mechanic magazine. He's a modest, middle-aged hero in the great tradition of Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Dickson McCunn.

Being an engineer himself, Shute obviously enjoys the excuse this book gives him to indulge in the language of precision mechanics, but he doesn't go overboard. A technical reader probably wouldn't find much to quibble at, but I don't think someone without a mechanics background would be baffled for long, either. Where the book is less convincing is in the final section, where the main characters are American industrial tycoons. Here you do get the impression that Shute doesn't quite know how such people speak and act (they talk like Americans in British novels), and is using the technology of long-distance phone calls, tape recorders and helicopters to distract from this.

The ending is a bit fairy-godmotherish, but that is entirely fitting for this sort of story, so there's no reason to complain about this: we need a bit of escapism in a feel-good adventure story. ( )

A charming and deeply satisfying book, if not especially sophisticated. Keith Stewart is a very winning protagonist, fun to root for in a Walter Mitty kind of way. Well worth the few days it takes to read. ( )

Despite having virtually no knowledge of either engineering or nautical terms and practices - nor to be honest, any interest in those areas - I found myself engaged in this story from the start. To me the book is really more about how character and connections to others work to solve problems and overcome obstacles than about the details. ( )

A gentle story, written in the days before cheap and easy international travel, that demonstrates beautifully both the principle of seven degrees of separation and also the support given by people to those who share their hobbies - in this case, model engineering.

It's also a reminder that a happy man is the one who has found what he really enjoys in life, and is content with it. ( )

3726. Trustee from the Toolroom, by Nevil Shute (read 5 Apr 2003) This novel, published in 1960, the year Shute (probably best known for On the Beach, that epic of pessimism) died, is such a "nice" story, poignant and a joy to read. It tells of a simple poor man who undertakes to do the best he can for the orphaned niece of his wife and accomplishes the task, showing that, incredibly, good can triumph despite obstacles. Clear, sweet, fiction--such a contrast to so much of present-day fiction of gloom and doom and, for that matter, of this author's On the Beach (read 17 May 1998). ( )