This is a combination boat book / environmental thriller. An oil tanker runs aground off the Cornish coast, spilling oil and creating an environmental disaster. Karen Rodin, despairing of slow efforts to clean up the oil and the number of animals killed, takes matters into her own hands and is killed herself. Her husband, Trevor, embarks on a quest for revenge that is facilitated by his previous life as a seafaring man on commercial vessels.

The book started off excitingly, certainly for me because I do love a good boat book, but I ended up stalling out and had to take the book in smaller doses. And given that this was a thriller written by a male author in a predominantly male world, it doesn’t contain very many female characters. There are no sex scenes, fortunately, but there are some grimace-inducing descriptions of women’s physical features, and there is some annoying possessiveness where a guy is basically assumed to have dibs on a girl because he’s of the right background, even if she might prefer someone else. The story ends at an interesting place; in a way it feels like the story just kind of stopped, but it does feel right to stop where it did. ( )

A decent read that captivated my attention for the most part, with enough technical details to give the story a ring of authenticity. I felt the ending was rather rushed and weak, and for that I deducted half a star. If you're new to this author I'd not recommend you start reading his work here. ( )

Trevor Rodin is one of Hammond Innes' more interesting protagonists. Like many of the previous "heroes" in Innes' fiction, Rodin is very much a flawed character. But in the case of The Black Tide, that extends to his final image. It's much more ambiguous, Rodin's fate and psychological state much less clear. No happy ending, here. And that is a change, especially from Innes' earlier works, where he hewed to the guidelines in place for adventure genre fiction. With this effort, however, Rodin is left somewhat adrift. His potential romance is a failure, a rejection, which fundamentally alters the expectations of the genre, the goal being to overcome hurdles and tasks to win the favor of the chosen woman. Trevor Rodin ends up a much more mature individual, taking stock of himself, his deceased wife, and the impact his initial thirst for revenge has had on others.

As an adventure story, The Black Tide does lack the pace and thrill of earlier works. But Innes is also trying to deliver an environmental message, a warning, in this 1982 novel. It's a reaction to the Amoco Cadiz disaster and a foretelling of the Exxon Exxon Valdez catastrophe. In the era of supertankers and massive oil spills, Innes describes what could well happen when environmental extremism joins with international terrorism. Despite all that, the book works for the most part. The story has its own momentum and but for a couple of environmental rants at the beginning and the end, Innes doesn't really let politics or ideology get in the way of the tale, although politicians, lawyers, officialdom do come in for a large amount of criticism and disgust. ( )

Innes was nearly seventy when he wrote this, so maybe he can be excused a few plot holes and some looseness of construction. Not one of his best, certainly, but a fairly competent thriller by anyone else's standards. The writing is fluent and professional, but the story doesn't really hang together. Too many threads are left dangling, too much detail we were fed in the early chapters never gets used, and the motivation often doesn't make sense. If your wife happens to blow up a supertanker in a high-profile act of ecoterrorism, it seems just a trifle unlikely that within a few days you will get head-hunted both to work on a supertanker and to take part in an undercover investigation for Lloyd's. And even less likely that you will accept both offers. ( )

England, Land's End, ca 1980
Indeholder "Første del: Optakt til forurening", "Anden del: Følgerne af et forlis", "Tredje del: Vejen til Dubai", "Fjerde del: Dhowen", "Femte del: Virgins Unlimited", "Sjette del: Det sorte tidevand".

Olietankeren Petros Jupiter går på grund ved Land's End og lækker tusindvis af tons råolie. Trevor Rodin og hans kone Karen bor lige ud for olieudslippet. Karen tager ud til vraget for at sætte ild til olien og det koster hende livet. Skibsforliset skyldes tab af maskinkraft og styreevne og Trevor har mistanke om at det skyldtes sabotage.
Skibets maskinmester Choffel er stukket af, hvilket bestyrker mistanken.
Trevor kontaktes af en advokat der repræsenterer dem, der har forsikret Petros Jupiter og to andre skibe Aurora B og Howdo Stranger fra samme rederi Godco. De to skibe er forsvundet i rum sø og det kan ruinere de navne i Lloyds der er involveret. Trevor lader sig ansætte til at undersøge sagen og lader sig hyre af Baldwin til et job, der kan føre ham til Choffel.
I løbet af kort tid er Trevor ombord på Aurora B, som tilsyneladende er kapret af nogle arabere under ledelse af Qasim, eller Abol Sadeq som han kalder sig nu.
Choffel forsøger at stikke af fra Aurora B og Trevor hopper med om bord på den dhow, som Choffel har kapret. Choffel er såret og de ender med at gå på grund, hvilket kun Trevor slipper godt fra. Han kommer i land, men kan nu slås med anklagen om at have slået Choffel ihjel, for Aurora B er sejlet og ingen kan bekræfte Trevors historie.
Forsikringsfolkene tror på ham og sporer tankerne til Selvagem øerne. De har fået navneforandring til Shah Mohammed og Ghazan Khan.
Fra øerne følger myndighederne tankerne til Den engelske Kanal, men uden at kunne gribe ind. Til sidst styres tankerne på grund ved Sandettié-banken og et kvart million tons råolie bliver sluppet fri.
Trevor finder sammen med Choffels datter, som er venligt stemt efter at hun har fundet ud af at hans historie er sand.
Og Trevor er også kommet i tvivl om Choffels skyld, så bortset fra en massiv olieforurening ender historien godt.

Noget besynderlig historie, for det står aldrig klart hvorfor tankerne skulle saboteres eller hvem der står bag ( )