Trustee From the Toolroom

Keith Stewart is a quiet and unassuming man called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. A skilled maker of miniature working models, he lives a modest life devoted to his hobby. But when his sister and her wealthy husband die in a shipwreck on a coral reef in the Pacific—while trying to smuggle out of England their entire fortune in diamonds hidden in the keel of their yacht—Keith becomes trustee for his orphaned niece. To save her from destitution he must travel halfway around the world and risk a long voyage in a small boat in inhospitable waters to recover her inheritance. In the course of his adventure-filled quest, a colorful and international cast of characters mobilize to help him, and this humble man discovers he has more friends and admirers than he could have dared to imagine.

“Enormously popular, possibly the best-liked of all Shute’s novels.” —Daily Express
 
“The surest bestseller. . . . As good as everything he ever wrote.” —Sunday Times
“Something about this author’s calm, deliberate style creates unexpected excitement. . . . We are warmed by the justice and sheer pleasure of it.” —The Independent
“A novelist of intelligent and engaging quality, deservedly popular…. Nevil Shute was, in brief, the sort of novelist who genuinely touches the imagination and feeling.” —The Times (London)

Nevil Shute Norway was born on 17 January 1899 in Ealing, London.After attending the Dragon School and Shrewsbury School, he studied Engineering Science at Balliol College, Oxford. He worked as an aeronautical engineer and published his first novel, Marazan, in 1926. In 1931 he married Frances Mary Heaton and they went on to have two daughters. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve where he worked on developing secret weapons. After the war he continued to write and settled in Australia where he lived until his death on 12 January 1960. His most celebrated novels include Pied Piper (1942), No Highway (1948), A Town Like Alice (1950) and On the Beach (1957).