David Grann’s book, The Wager – A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder and Mutiny, published in 2025 is a 406 page non-fiction masterpiece.

What I admire about narrative non-fiction writers is their ability to give the reader enough detail to appreciate what the main characters experience, but not so much that the pace of the story is diminished. Throughout The Wager David Grann draws the reader in with a page-turning drama, while at the same time providing an education about the lives of the British sailors who served on men-of-war.

It’s impossible for modern landlubbers to fully understand what it was like for sailors to climb masts, hanging onto dear life while the wind howled and waves crashed over the decks, but Grann does an excellent job giving the reader a sense of that terrifying experience. The drama unfolds as crewmembers die of scurvy, aboard all the ships in the original group, while the vessels are pounded by unrelenting storms.

When The Wager is separated from the rest of the fleet, the ship crashes on a rocky shoreline. The survivors find themselves on an island with very little food, surviving mainly on what provisions they can salvage from the wreck. Unlike today, no one is inspecting satellite images to try and find them and since this is before the telegraph, the chances of being able to make contact with the outside world is basically non-existent.

David Cheap, the Wager’s Captain, is determined to maintain order, but many of the sailors are driven to extremes by starvation. At one point Cheap is so frustrated by men stealing from their meager food rations, that he shoots one of them in the head. Now he faces possible execution for murder, if they ever return to England. Later, a group of men lead by the Wager’s Gunner, John Bulkeley leave the island using three of Wager’s smaller vessels, Bulkeley refusing to follow a route suggested by Captain Cheap. Although they claim it was necessary to leave Cheap because of his erratic behavior, they still risked being executed for mutiny because they abandoned their Captain.

The story continues, with Bulkely’s crew fighting the raging sea, only this time in smaller vessels. Miraculously some of Bulkeley’s group do survive, helped by indigenous peoples, but they end up being prisoners of Spain, which was at war with England at the time.

Eventually, Bulkeley and some of the sailors with him make it back to England, where they must face an inquiry to determine if they have broken naval codes of conduct. And then, when it appears only their account will be heard, Captain Cheap, who they believed dead, returns. He was also helped by indigenous peoples to survive. And finally, just to make things even more interesting, sailors and marines who Bulkeley had left abandoned on an island during their voyage, also return to England.

David Grann has written an amazing account with men struggling not only against the elements, but also with their consciences. Men like Bulkeley had to choose between loyalty to their Captain, or the lives of their crewmates. At the same time, Captain Cheap honestly believed their only hope was to strictly adhere to the rules of conduct, or their small colony would break down into chaos, which it did.

If you enjoy a tale of life of death battles against the elements, with constant twists and turns, you’ll thoroughly enjoy The Wager. The story is told from the perspective of young sailors and wizened old sea dogs and it draws you in from page one. Two of David Grann’s books have already been made into movies, The Lost City of Z (2016) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023.) I hope The Wager will be the next.

Copyright © 2025 by J. Paul Cooper