The Devil's Alternative

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“More flips than a trapeze artist, including a final twist that left this unsuspecting reader cursing Forsyth’s cleverness—with admiration.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“A by-the-lapels thriller that ... is disturbingly current, chillingly believable. ... Forsyth places a million-ton bomb in its midst and lights a fuse that crackles and races across the globe.”

—Louisville Times

“Brilliantly conceived, chess-game of a novel. ... You will be so spellbound that ... you cannot quit reading.”

—Columbus Dispatch

THE CASTAWAY would have been dead before sundown but for the sharp eyes of an Italian seaman called Mario. By the time he was spotted he had lapsed into unconsciousness, the exposed parts of his near-naked body grilled to second-degree burns by the relentless sun, and those parts submerged in seawater soft and white between the salt sores like the limbs of a rotting goose.

Mario Curcio was the cook-steward on the Garibaldi, an amiable old rust bucket out of Brindisi, thumping her way eastward toward Cape Ince and on to Trabzon in the far eastern corner of the north shore of Turkey. She was on her way to pick up a cargo of almonds from Anatolia.

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