His Bones Are Coral — Victor Canning

Howard Smith had often made the run between Port Sudan and Cairo, but when his plane crashed in the desert near a small Red Sea port he was carrying drugs for the first time. Somehow he had to pay his way out of the wreckage and dispose of his illicit cargo.

Signore Maraccini, a marine biologist, offered him employment in his exploration of a coral reef and of course he met his daughter, Reta. Somewhere in life there is always the other person who, for each one of us, can drive out loneliness. For Howard, Reta was that person. But it was a dangerous love he had found, perilous as the sharp coral or the shark-hungry waters.

Victor Canning "is a master of his craft." V. S. Pritchett in The Bookman

"His gift of story-telling is obviously innate. Rarely does one come on so wholly satisfying an amalgam of plot, characterisation and good writing." Punch