“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key”, was Winston Churchill’s famous take on Russia in World War II.

A rather less significant — but nonetheless intriguing — set of questions has been thrown up in recent days by the publication of a new shipping-based thriller, The Ocean Dove.

Breathless

The breathless blurb put out by Troubadour's UK self-publishing imprint Matador, conjures up a tale of skulduggery on the high seas, after the ship Danske Prince apparently sinks in the Indian Ocean with a deadly cargo.