The Night Boat

While collectors will appreciate this reissue of bestselling horror legend McCammon’s third novel (published in 1980), it doesn’t offer much for the casual genre fan. During WWII, Allied sub chasers sink a Nazi U-boat that’s been terrorizing Caribbean naval shipyards. Forty years later, widower David Moore unintentionally sets off an explosive depth charge off the coast of the Caribbean island Coquina, causing the U-boat to resurface along with memories of the devastation it once caused. Voodoo priest Reverend Boniface demands its destruction. Steven Kip, the island’s constable, waves off Boniface’s warnings as old history and superstition, but the boat causes a compulsion on those who come near; there’s a persistent banging from within its hull; and as the death toll mounts, the survivors are forced to confront both their own histories and the island’s haunting, horrifying past. Though there are some vividly visceral scenes, the story is marred by obvious twists, an excess of characters, and initially promising story lines that fizzle before a rushed, anticlimactic ending. Agent: Donald Maass, Donald Maass Agency. (Nov.)