There Is A Tide

A man returns from the dead, and the body of a mysterious stranger is found in his room...

After Gordon Cloade's gruesome death, his sister-in-law enlists Hercule Poirot to gather information on Rosaleen, Gordon's widow and sole heir, and her deceased first husband.

A boy from boarding school learns a little about life in an island house called Ovterop.

A girl provides a lighthearted account of the spring floods at her rural home.

A slight, pretty girl, in a corner seat of the boat express, was looking out of the window. To her everything was new and odd and a face curiously expressive was quick to register its emotions. All was on a scale so much less than the land from which she had come. The neatly parcelled acres somehow reminded her of Noah’s ark. Farmsteads trim and tiny; amusing hedgerows; the cattle and horses in the fields; the comic little villages, each with its moss-grown church tower peering through the damp mist, were so expected and yet so unnatural to the eye of a stranger that it was rather like a scene in a play. The girl was in the compartment alone. By her side was a “grip,” cheap looking, battered, with an air of travel; in the rack, above her head, was its fellow with a mackintosh and an umbrella. Like their owner, these articles had a subtle air of the second rate. Yet the girl herself, had she known how to wear her clothes, which were not bad of their kind, had certain points that seemed to promise a way out. For one thing, she was alive. Grey eyes, shrewd, keen and clear, looking out from under the brim of a hat that had a touch of smartness, seemed to absorb every detail of this film reeled off at the rate of sixty miles an hour. It was like the movies, but less exciting. Not that the traveller craved excitement. This trip to an unknown land was far from being a pleasure jaunt. So intent were the grey eyes in absorbing a scene which was a good deal below expectation, that they were not content with the window against which her elbow pressed. Now and then they roved to the left across the narrow corridor, for a glimpse of the more distant view. Broadly speaking, this, too, was a washout. The mist, clammy and all-pervading, might have a lot to do with the general effect, but England, so far, was nothing to write home about. Disappointment already loomed in a receptive mind, when a man appeared in the corridor. He gazed through the glass at the compartment’s sole occupant; then he came in and closed the door carefully. With a quiet air he took a corner seat immediately facing the girl. She had a feeling that she had seen him before; but where or in what circumstances she could not say. Indeed, so vague was her memory that she soon decided it was a mere reaction to the man’s striking personality. He was not a man to forget. Big, handsome, muscular, clean and trim, he had all the snap of the smart New Yorker. Evidently he went to good tailors and he paid for dressing.

From Cnut to D-Day: the history and science of the unceasing tide explored for the first time. Half of the world's population lives in coastal regions lapped by tidal waters. Yet how little most of us know about the tide. Our ability to predict and understand the tide depends on centuries of science, from the observations of Aristotle and the theories of Newton to today's supercomputer calculations. This story is punctuated here by notable tidal episodes in history, from Caesar's thwarted invasion of Britain to the catastrophic flooding of Venice, and interwoven with a rich folklore that continues to inspire art and literature today. With Aldersey-Williams as our guide to the most feared and celebrated tidal features on the planet, from the original maelstrøm in Scandinavia to the world's highest tides in Nova Scotia to the crumbling coast of East Anglia, the importance of the tide, and the way it has shaped - and will continue to shape - our civilization, becomes startlingly clear.