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'Sometimes the smallest of human failings can lead to the greatest of disasters
'On a wretchedly cold night in the North Atlantic, a steamer stopped in an icefield sees the glow of another ship on the horizon. Just after midnight the first of eight distress rockets is fired. Why did the Californian look on while the Titanic sank?
'As soon as Boston American reporter John Steadman lays eyes on the man who stood the midnight watch on the Californian, he knows there's another story lurking behind the official one. Herbert Stone must have seen something, and yet his ship did nothing while the calamity took place. Now Stone, under his captain's orders, must carry his secret in silence, while Steadman is determined to find it out.
'So begins a strange dance around the truth by these three men. Haunted by the fifteen hundred who went to their deaths in those icy waters, and by the loss of his own baby son years earlier, Steadman must either find redemption in the Titanic's tragedy or lose himself.
'Based on true events, The Midnight Watch is at once a heart-stopping mystery and a deeply knowing novel – about the frailty of men, the strength of women, the capriciousness of fate and the price of loyalty.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: For my Mother and Father
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Epigraph: 'Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.' –Herman Melville
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Braille.
Works about this Work
- y The Midnight Watch by David Dyer Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2017 12215015 2017 single work criticism
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David Dyer : The Midnight Watch.
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , August 2016;
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Tip of the Iceberg
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Author , June vol. 48 no. 1 2016; (p. 18-22)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Distress Signal
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 381 2016; (p. 26-27)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Review : The Midnight Watch
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Good Reading , March 2016;
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel
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Keneally Still Has Oscars Glow
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 1 March 2016; (p. 7)
— Review of The Soldier's Curse 2016 single work novel ; The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Titanic Had Other Victims
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend West , 9 March 2016; (p. 8)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Missed Rescue of Titanic Proportions
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 19-20 March 2016; (p. 26)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
Unresolved Mystery of Titanic Proportions
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian , 26 March 2016; (p. 20)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel'Precisely why the story of the Titanic continues to exercise such a powerful hold on the collective imagination is a fascinating question. The answer lies, at least in part, in the way it simultaneously enacts and contradicts a series of fantasies about the passing of the Gilded Age, setting the hubris of the ship’s owners’ claims about its unsinkability against the images of doomed nobility and chivalry that are embodied in the image of the band playing on as the ship slid beneath the waves... Dyer isn’t the first writer to venture into this territory, although as a former ship’s officer and lawyer who spent many years working in the London firm that represented the Titanic’s owners, he may be the most qualified' (James Bradley).
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In Plain Sight
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The New York Times Book Review , 1 May 2016; (p. 21)
— Review of The Midnight Watch 2016 single work novel -
A Pair of Ragged Claws
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27-28 February 2016; (p. 17) -
David Dyer
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 27-28 February 2016; (p. 24) - y The Midnight Watch by David Dyer Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2017 12215015 2017 single work criticism
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form
y
The Book Club [21 June 2016]
Sydney
:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
,
2016
15260178
2016
film/TV
Host Jennifer Byrne joins regular panelists Marieke Hardy and Jason Steger, and guests Omar Musa and Rosie Waterland to discuss and review the international book A Million Little Pieces and Australian novel, The Midnight Watch by David Dyer.
Awards
- 2017 winner Society of Authors Awards — McKitterick Prize
- 2017 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — The Matt Richell Award for New Writer
- 2017 shortlisted Indie Awards — Debut Fiction
- 2016 commended The Fellowship of Australian Writers Victoria Inc. National Literary Awards — FAW Christina Stead Award
- 2016 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award