A novel by E. M. Curnow TRILOGY II
The marina survey dredges up timbers from the Gwennol — and suddenly it's salvage law, press attention, and a race: whoever proves claim to the wreck controls the seabed. Isolde finds something in her father's papers that changes everything.
In The Salvage Claim, Polperran’s harbour looks ordinary until the marina survey dredges up old timbers from the Gwennol. What might have been a local curiosity becomes a public contest of salvage law, cameras and competing claims. Isolde is drawn from family papers to Jenny’s logbook, and the village’s secrets begin to feel as tidal as the sea itself.
For readers of twelve to fifteen, this is a thoughtful, page-turning mystery rather than a cosy adventure. There is legal wrangling to untangle, press attention to navigate, and moral courage to watch for in small choices: a conversation on Dunning’s bench, an abstention by Cllr Chegwidden. The danger is real but measured, with dry humour, clear feeling and room to breathe between discoveries.
As the second novel in E. M. Curnow’s Polperran trilogy, The Salvage Claim lets older readers feel the village changing under pressure. The shared setting is still recognisable from younger Polperran stories, but the questions are bigger: who owns the past, who benefits from the marina, and how politics touches friendship, family and the long shadow of the Hoard.