Dead in the Water. By Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel. Portfolio; 288 pages; $27. Atlantic Books; £18.99
THE GLOBAL shipping network is one of capitalism’s most impressive achievements. Commercial vessels carry over four-fifths of world trade in physical merchandise, much of it lugged around in the more than 16,000 container ships and oil tankers in service. Yet as ever-more ports have been moved away from cities, shipping has become one of the least visible engines of the modern economy.
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It can also be among the shadiest, argue Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel, two journalists from Bloomberg. Based on more than four years of reporting, their tale of the fate of the Brillante Virtuoso exposes the dark, barnacle-encrusted goings-on beneath the industry’s waterline. They tell a remarkable story about an unremarkable ship, “fought over, picked apart in court, and investigated by police, naval forces, private detectives and experts who make their living boarding ships to look for nearly invisible clues”. Books about merchant shipping are rarely so gripping.
The central event is the boarding of the Brillante, an ageing oil tanker, by pirates claiming to represent “the authorities”, as the ship crosses the Gulf of Aden in July 2011. The interlopers set off an explosion that causes a…
