Nevil Shute

"A tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback." -- Cover, p.4.

Adventure on the high seas and in the air.

She was from the hills of Yorkshire, country born and bred. He was a city boy. By the stream where they fished, they were two young people falling in love. Overhead, the bombers roared, threatening to blow their idyllic world, so young, so fresh, to smithereens.

When Stanton Laird, American geologist, goes prospecting for the Topeka Exploration Company in the savage Australian outback, he finds something a good deal more precious than oil.

Donald Ross is a young pilot, out of work and in desperate need of a job. So, despite the extreme danger involved, he jumps at the chance to fly Oxford professor Cyril Lockwood and his daughter Alix to the frozen wilds of Greenland to study Viking ruins. But the perils of the journey are nothing compared to what will happen when they arrive. Ignoring the warnings of the terrified natives, who believe the ruins are haunted, the explorers set up camp...