Billed as something of a true-to-life The Swiss Family Robinson (a novel by the Swiss author Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a family that is shipwrecked and marooned on an island in the East Indies), Save Our Souls: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, & Murder is a riveting book by Matthew Pearl about ship's captain Frederick Walker, a native of Dublin, along with his Liverpool-born wife Elizabeth and their teenage sons, Frederick, Henry and Charlie, all of whom -- along with several members of the ship's crew and the family dog -- are stuck on Sand Island, a desolate part of the remote Midway Atoll, after their ship the Wandering Minstrel breaks apart in a storm in February 1888.

Besides the usual problems, such as food, fresh water, shelter and the potential to escape the island, they also must deal with Hans Jorgensen, a man they find already marooned on the island ... for, it turns out, the murder of his former shipmates. To make matters worse, the Minstrel's first mate, John Cameron, turns out to be equally dangerous -- and, of course, the two men quickly join forces against the Walkers.

What follows is a desperate tale of survival. While the Walkers and several members of their crew are eventually rescued some 14 months later, Cameron and Jorgensen flee the island in a small boat, surviving for weeks on the open sea before making landfall and being taken to Hawaii. Disgracefully, the two men don't send help to Midway -- hoping that everyone who can bear witness against them will die there and eliminate the problem for good.

Pearl does not simply tell a straightforward tale of the wreck and the castaways' struggles on the island. Throughout that compelling narrative, he weaves related stories, including other wrecks there (primarily the one that first brought Jorgensen to Midway, and the reasons why he was later left behind); the strategic importance of Midway to the United States and previous efforts to develop a base there; the politics of Hawaii, where the native kingdom was struggling to survive encroachment by U.S. and other international interests; various ships that very nearly visited Midway during their time there but, for one reason or another, passed the atoll by; and the "blackbirding" (aka slave trade), in which both Cameron and Jorgensen were deeply involved. The book even touches on the involvement of author Robert Louis Stevenson, who was in Hawaii during the events in question and who later based his novel The Wrecker on the Minstrel's misfortune.

Save Our Souls has a lot of moving parts, but Pearl ties them together fluidly, and the book is rarely dry. Anyone who enjoys tales of the sea -- nonfiction accounts or novels such as The Swiss Family Robinson or Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe -- should thoroughly enjoy this harrowing saga. For readers who like their endings wrapped up neatly, Pearl provides a "what happened next" conclusion for nearly every character who appears in the book.