Run Before the Wind

This is a coming of age story in the age of terrorism and is set in the 1970s. The author's theme and point of the book is terrorism and the stupid "vendetta" style killings around Northern Ireland in that time period. While that's going on, the sailing story is absolutely engrossing. Admittedly, some of the terminology is the arcane language of sailing: jibs, stays and bilge to name a few. There are few characters and our hero, Will Lee, is involved with all of them--book's written in the first person...seems that he has woman problems and just can't get it right with them. Little knowledge of the first book in the series is required to like this one--there's a 30 second summary near the beginning. I presume that the third book will be show more the same. show less

This novel takes place mostly in Ireland and is very much a nautical story. It took quite some time for the story to really develop, almost 2/3 of the book, when the story line of IRA terrorism became more prominent than the sailing/shipbuilding, so it would appeal to those who like a slow story with lots of narrative description of sailing ships, shipyards, races, etc. Not being really interested in seafaring I read the novel because it was the work of Stuart Woods, but I found it not to be among my favorites. I rate it toward the bottom of my list of Woods' books along with "Under The Lake".

First edition signed very fine