The Deep
In Alma Katsu’s follow-up to The Hunger (2018), history and the supernatural collide when a young stewardess steps aboard the Titanic only to find herself once again on an ill-fated ship in wartime 1916, running from a curse she cannot escape.
In 1912, Annie Hebbley flees from a scandal in her Northern Ireland town, eager to forget her past and start a new future. Her ticket to a new life is onboard the Titanic, which is brought to life in exquisite detail by Katsu. As passengers stream onboard, Annie meets a wealthy young couple she is drawn to immediately: Mark and Caroline Fletcher, along with their infant daughter, Ondine. As Annie inserts herself into the lives of the couple, the story becomes slow and indulgent in places, with only the tightly told Britannic timeline alleviating the doldrums. An otherworldly disturbing presence appears when a séance onboard the Titanic goes terribly wrong, and several characters (two of whom are distractingly unbelievable) begin feeling stalked by their betrayals, regrets, and secrets.
In 1916, Annie is in an asylum dealing with the physical and emotional fallout of the disaster. Taking a job as nurse on the hospital ship Britannic (Titanic’s sister ship), she learns to put her mind together as she cares for wounded soldiers coming back from the Western Front. When she comes across one patient’s familiar face, the horrors of the Titanic return in a rush, bringing home a fatal realization: what stalked the Titanic now stalks the Britannic. Can she solve the mysteries haunting her before another tragedy occurs?
The Deep is a creative take on obsession, possession, and loss, but could be told in half the time and with better results.
