This image is the cover for the book Closed Harbour

Closed Harbour

Trapped on shore, a captain fights desperately for a place on a ship

Once, Marius believes, the world was wide and the sea was infinite. Adventure and profit awaited any man bold enough to step aboard a ship and cast his lot with the open ocean.

But those days are gone. After a long and undistinguished career, Marius’s reputation suffers an irreparable blow during the dark days of World War II when he refuses to go down with a sinking ship. It is the greatest crime a captain can commit, and it dooms him to hell on earth.

Trapped in Marseilles, Marius spends his days begging for a boat and his nights in a bitter, alcoholic stupor. The ocean has rejected him so fully, he thinks, that he doubts the waters would even allow him to drown. But as Marius learns, it’s possible for a man to drown on dry land.

James Hanley

James Hanley (1897–1985) was born in Liverpool, England, to an Irish Catholic family. He spent time in the merchant navy and served with the Canadian Infantry during World War I. From 1930 to 1981 Hanley published forty-eight books, including the novels Boy, The Furys, The Ocean, Another World, and Hollow Sea. He penned plays for radio, television, and theater and published a work of nonfiction, Grey Children, on the plight of coal miners. Hanley died in London but was buried in Wales, the setting for many of his works. 

Open Road Integrated Media