I'd like to be re-reading The Death Ship by B. Traven. 1934 - Alfred A. Knopf, but sadly, I'm kind of logjammed (or bookjammed) with other books that I've lined up to read. But back to The Death Ship. Anyone who has worked a job requiring hard labor, or who likes stories about tramp steamer ships, will feel a kinship with this book. It starts off with the principle character, an American seaman named Gales, visiting a prostitute in Antwerp. He wakes up only to find that the lady had abandoned him, along with his wallet and passport. Worse yet, he heads down to dockside only to find that his vessel had sailed away. There follows a very interesting tale of a man without a country. When things begin to look somewhat bleak, he is offered a spot on the Yorikke, a rather decrepit ship that is used primarily for smuggling ammunition from here to there. The work as a disposer of ash from the boilers is backbreaking at first, but Gales toughens up and, with his new found friend Stanislav, experiences some rather grim and not so grim adventures aboard the Yorikke and beyond, as the book nears its conclusion. Traven was a rather mysterious author and not a whole heck of a lot is known about him. He was also the author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.