• I reviewed Twelve Mile Bank by Nicholas Harvey and ended up giving it three stars.

• I originally picked it up on Amazon while looking for books for the Clock Reading Challenge.

• The story mixes history with a modern-day sea adventure set around the Cayman Islands.

• The main character, AJ Bailey, runs a dive boat out in the Caymans.

• She grew up in England, listening to her granddad’s story about what happened near the end of the Second World War.

• The plot follows a race to locate a sunken WWII submarine, which may hold lost treasure.

• AJ is keen to preserve the historical significance, whereas the antagonists—Argentinian relic hunters—are rather unscrupulous and only after the money.

• The book uses flashbacks to her granddad recounting wartime events.

• I liked most of the characters, though one didn’t quite convince me (I won’t say which to avoid spoilers).

• I felt the book improved as it went along, especially once the action picked up.

• I’d recommend it if you enjoy stories with World War connections and a blend of history and adventure.

Robert Bailey was not as shocked as she thought he would be. He shook his head but couldn’t hide a slight grin. He commanded respect and got his way in the toughest corporate boardroom, but his daughter melted the man and he adored her free spirit and sense of adventure. Her mother was not so easy.

Her mother cornered her one day and, in an uncharacteristically bumbling style, asked if Annabelle was interested in other women. AJ laughed and swore she was not a lesbian. The idea that people might be unsure actually appealed to her. She felt it gave her an edge somehow, knocked some people off balance a bit. For a girl who grew up thin on self-assuredness it felt good to sense she may have the upper hand sometimes.

“Raft?” Andreas asked, looking at Wilhelm. Willy fumbled behind him to retrieve a deflated canvas and rubber raft. “Don’t drop that, Willy, we may be floating for a while before they pick us up.”

Thomas looked at AJ in a panic. “When’s this gonna happen?”“Depends whose model you believe. Could be as soon as forty or fifty years. More likely it’s over a hundred years away, but that’s not very long if you think about it. Your children will probably witness this island going underwater unless something radically changes.”

Reg loved to hear Pearl sing. He couldn’t wait for Friday nights and would sit quietly at the bar, sipping his neat bourbon, and hung on every note she played and every line she sang. The bear of a man was completely besotted with his woman, and often a tear would roll down his cheek as she crooned a sadder song. Between sets she’d sit next to him and they’d chat about the old days in London, or the day they’d just had on the boat. It didn’t matter. What she wanted to talk about was what he wanted to hear, and vice versa.

He wasn’t sure why that troubled him as at the rate they were moving they’d be long dead before that problem even became a problem. But time was something the three men had an abundance of, so Andreas chewed over these dilemmas at length.

Most stories grow with each repeated telling, but Grandad stayed true to his memory each time. Sometimes he would go into more detail here and there, or expand on a side story about the islands or the Navy. Sometimes he would recall more about his shipmates, but he never embellished, never strayed from the truth as he remembered it.

We spent the whole war hating these blokes, you know, the Germans, but now we’ve got one laid in front of us and he’s terrified and just a young lad like the rest of us. He’s damn near dead and all we want to do is try and save him. An hour earlier we would have done everything we could to try and kill the bugger. Strange ol’ world isn’t it?

In that moment she made a big decision: she would burden Thomas Bodden with a secret she had only ever shared with one other person. She just needed to find the right moment.

People tend to notice when bodies stack up or go missing, and it gets much harder to cover their tracks, especially on a safe little island like Grand Cayman.

I know he was the enemy, but I liked this bloke. He was just a lad doing his duty like we all were. He just happened to be on the wrong side of things. I guess if I was born in Germany I would have been in his shoes, and probably wouldn’t know any different.

Memories have a way of knocking the sharp edges off experiences, and recalling the more agreeable aspects.

AJ had recognised a long time ago that in social terms young, single people fell into two categories; the caller or the called. The callers were the ones who rang someone else to see what was going on, where to go and were always trying to be at the cool party with the cool people. The called were the ones who decided what was cool. She had always labelled herself a caller, which though typical of humble people, was probably an inaccurate self-assessment. But Mac was definitely the called.

He looked back at Reg and the grin was gone. “I feel confident you understand the consequences of wasting our time. Do you, Mr. Moore? Understand that there would be significant consequences?”

Something about this man always seemed disarming to Reg. He was incredibly well mannered and polite. He dressed and carried himself as an educated, sophisticated and wealthy man, yet after any conversation with him, Reg never felt like he’d been told the whole truth, or maybe any truths at all.

“This a two-biscuit story – those women don’t get that, you see. They think a tale like this can be wrapped up in a single biscuit time frame. You and I know better.”

The farther away you get from the face of the man you’re fighting, the easier it gets to kill him, I reckon.