Muscular and lyrical by turns, Mr. Rigney’s prose …

Muscular and lyrical by turns, Mr. Rigney’s prose deftly captures the wildness of the sea-the deep gleam of a shoal turning suddenly in the sunlight, the birdlike head of a striped marlin, spawning tuna ‘blazing their milky contrails.’ Each section reads like a short story. Thumbnail character sketches abound, with the odd salty joke thrown in.