It's no secret that I have an unquenchable fondness for nautical fiction, but my library of nautical nonfiction is more selective. As fascinating as the topic may be, many of the books I've read in that field have been surprisingly dry (given the vast wetness of the subject at hand ... please pardon my pun).

There are, of course, some outstanding authors who tell their stories in refreshing and informative ways, such as David Blackmore in Blunders & Disasters at Sea, Gill Hoffs in The Sinking of RMS Tayleur: The Lost Story of the Victorian Titanic and Richard Zacks in The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, as well as anything by prolific authors such as Eric Jay Dolin, Joan Druett, James L. Nelson and Dudley Pope.

Add David Grann to that list. His recent book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny & Murder, is a well-written, thoroughly researched story that in many ways reads more like a thrilling sea novel than a history book.

The book tells the story of HMS Wager, a former merchant vessel converted into a man-of-war, which was dispatched with a small fleet of British ships in August 1740, near the onset of the War of Jenkins' Ear, to engage the Spanish at sea. Commodore George Anson, aboard HMS Centurion, commanded the mission, with orders to intercept a treasure-laden Manila galleon off the west coast of South America. However, the expedition was fraught with delays, mishaps and bad luck, with scurvy devastating the crews even before the fleet was slammed with terrible storms while rounding Cape Horn.

The 28-gun Wager left England under the experienced command of Captain Dandy Kidd, who died of an illness while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He was replaced by the untried Lt. David Cheap, who weathered the cape before losing sight of the fleet. To make matters worse, the ship's crew, due to a shortage of able seamen in England, included many old and disabled sailors who were provided by the admiralty at the last minute before sailing.

On May 14, 1741, the ship -- separated from Anson's fleet and lost in a storm -- wrecked on a small, desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.

What follows is a struggle for survival, further marred by dissent among the men and, eventually, outright mutiny. Cheap tries to maintain order, but the men divide into factions, and incidents of theft, drunkenness, murder and cannibalism begin to shred the fabric of the marooned crew. John Bulkeley, the ship's gunner, finds himself leading the party of sailors who break with Cheap and, on Oct 5, set out for Brazil on three fragile boats via the perilous Straits of Magellan. Only 30 of them -- barely a third of the original party -- survive the trip, arriving in Rio De Janeiro on Jan 1, 1743.

Returning to England, Bulkeley and his shipmates are hailed as heroes for surviving the dangerous journey, and Bulkeley even publishes a book, based on his journal, that provides a narrative of the incident. However, Cheap and a few other shipmates also survive, having sailed the shorter route to Chile, where they were captured by Spanish forces and detained 'til the end of the war. On Cheap's return to England on Apr 9, 1745, the issue of mutiny rears its head, and in 1746 the surviving members of Wager's officers and crew are called to a court-martial to determine innocence or guilt in the matter.

The court's judgment is ... bureaucratic, to say the least.

The Wager is based primarily on seamen's logbooks, trial records and published accounts of the voyage. In addition to the specifics of the Anson mission and the wreck of the Wager, the author also offers many interesting side notes about life aboard a man-of-war as well as thorough backgrounds on the men involved in the incident.

Grann gives readers a meticulous account of the events, writing with the flair of a novelist but the detail-oriented focus of a historian. Far from tedious, The Wager is a pleasure to read.