The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

In 1741, HMS Wager ran aground off the coast of Patagonia. The crew survived the wreck. What came after was worse. The Wager follows the months those men spent on an uninhabitable island, the mutiny that split them, and the long journeys home—separately, by different routes, with very different versions of events. David Grann, who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, is exceptionally good at this kind of archival reconstruction. He works from journals, court records, and letters to piece together who did what and why, without pretending more certainty than the record allows. The story raises questions about authority, loyalty, and what ordinary people are capable of under extreme conditions—questions the British Navy tried to suppress when the survivors returned. A true story that reads faster than most thrillers.