The North Water

'A stunning novel that snares the reader from the outset and keeps the tightest grip until its bitter end' -- Financial Times
'A novel that takes us to the limits of flesh and blood. Utterly convincing and compelling, remorselessly vivid and insidiously witty.' -- Martin Amis
'Horrifically gripping' -- Independent on Sunday
'Full of twists, turns, period detail and strong characters' -- The Times
'The North Water has exceptional power and energy' -- Sunday Times
'Terrific – seamed with pitch-black humour and possessed of a momentum that's kept up to the final scene' -- Daily Mail
'A superbly compelling suspense narrative' -- Irish Times
‘The North Water is brilliant. A fast paced gripping story set in a world where ‘why’ is not a question and murder happens on a whim; but where a faint ray of grace and hope lights up the landscape of salt and blood and ice’ – Hilary Mantel

‘Riveting and darkly brilliant . . . The North Water feels like the result of an encounter between Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy in some run down port as they offer each other a long, sour nod of recognition. McGuire has an extraordinary talent’ - Colm Toibin, New York Times

‘The strength of The North Water lies in its well researched detail and persuasive descriptions of the cold, violence, cruelty and the raw, bloody business of whale killing. The Volunteer is rotten from the outset . . . The ship becomes a morally null universe, isolated on the north water. There are echoes here of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’ - Helen Dunmore, The Guardian

‘McGuire delivers not only arresting depictions of bloody destruction, but moments of fine prose that recall Seamus Heaney's harsh music. For noirish thrills in an unusual setting, McGuire has the goods and the gore’ - Kirkus Reviews

'Blood, blubber and appalling human violence saturate a tale of a doomed 19th century whaling voyage to the Arctic' - Sunday Times

'Set in the late 19th century, this is the tale of Patrick Sumner, a former army surgeon who joins a whaler bound for the waters of the Arctic Circle. Why would he take on such a dangerous task? He has a secret to hide. Also worth noting is that Ian McGuire's vivid novel is full of the smells of Victorian Hull, which include the "morning piss stink of just emptied night jars", "the usual tavern stench farts and pipe smoke and spilled ale", "the roaring stench of excrement and decay"; the "residual smell of horse dung and butchery"...I could go on' - Times

'This terse and grisly novel about the last days of the whaling industry is joint favourite to win the Man Booker Prize' - Sunday Telegraph

‘Forget slick, cool, funny and topical, this is the kind of book that captures the imagination, this is what fiction is about – the power of story.’ - Irish Times

'McGuire approached the telling of his novel with a linguistic panache seldom seen in contemporary British fiction' - Irish Times

‘Powerful . . . A tale of startling brutality and violence. Undeniably gripping’ - Times Literary Supplement

'A stunning achievement, by turns great fun and shocking, thrilling and provocative. Behold: one of the finest books of the year' - James Kidd, Independent

'McGuire delivers one bravura set piece after another . . . The North Water has, in places, a Conrad–Melville undercurrent, but for the most part it is Dickens’s influence that is most keenly felt . . . This is a stunning novel, one that snares the reader from the outset and keeps the tightest grip until its bitter end' - Financial Times

'Horrifically gripping. Such fine writing might have been lifted from the pages of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick’ - Independent on Sunday

'Terrific, seamed with pitch black humour and possessed of a momentum that's kept up to the final, unexpected but resoundingly satisfying scene ... Inspired' - Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail

'This book is quite a ride . . . The powerful story and the riches of the setting do not romanticise the past' - Erica Wagner, New Statesman

'The North Water has exceptional power and energy' - Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
'A vivid read, full of twists, turns, period detail and strong characters . . . An enjoyable contrast to most literary fiction' - Robbie Millen, The Times

‘Death is the making of The North Water, Ian McGuire’s bloody, gripping novel set in the middle of the 19th century aboard the Volunteer . . . The language has a harsh, surprising beauty that contrasts the spectacular setting with the greedy, bankrupt men who force their way northward, armed with harpoons for slaughter . . . Powerful’ - New Statesman

‘Ian McGuire’s second novel is an unflinching look at what men do, in extreme circumstances, for money, to survive, or for no reason at all. It has quite a lot in common with TV shows like HBO’s Deadwood and its many descendants (including Peaky Blinders), and . . . it grips like a horror movie. The North Water is self consciously literary, thick with allusions to other books: Moby Dick, obviously; Conrad; Elizabeth Gaskell’s only historical novel, Sylvia’s Lovers; William Golding’s Rites of Passage trilogy; Frankenstein; Dracula; McGuire’s opening sentence is an ironic allusion to John’s gospel but it also recalls the beginning of the novel that The North Water most resembles, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian’ - London Review of Books