BOOK REVIEW: Dead in the Water (A True Story of Hijacking, Murder and a Global Maritime Conspiracy)

By Mathew Campbell and Kit Chellel. Portfolio/Penguin, New York, hard cover, 268 pp with index and bibliographical references. US$27

On the night of July 5, 2011, a 271-meter-long oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude worth US$100 million from Ukraine to China stopped dead in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden to take on what purportedly were guards to protect the ship on its trip through one of the world’s most hazardous shipping lanes. That the 20-year-old MT Brilliante Virtuos…