Voyage to the First of December

A “superb” novel exploring “the psychology of the actors” in the 1842 Somers Mutiny “to fill in the tantalizing spaces between the spare lines of fact” (The Wall Street Journal).

Inspired by American Naval records of the Somers Mutiny Affair of 1842, Voyage to the First of December is a historical adventure of rebellion on the high seas. When a conflict arises between eighteen-year-old midshipman Philip Spencer and Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, commander of the Somers, Spencer and two sailors are accused of conspiring to mutiny and hung aboard the ship. Told from the point of view of the ship’s surgeon, the novel is a riveting account of the controversial execution, exploring the question of whether there truly was a threat to the command of the ship, or if there were murkier, darker reasons for what might have been a cold-blooded murder at sea.