The Swordfish and the Star

An alternative perspective, telling the stories of the fishermen who work on this treacherous stretch of coast, tales gathered over two years of interviews, many conducted in the Swordfish and Star of the title – Tom Robbins * Financial Times Books of the Year *A terrific new book about a hard and dangerous way of life * Esquire, Book of the Year *Knight has gone in search of old smells and danger and found them in spades. There are extraordinarily evocative stories here, of the mad bravado of scarred, de-fingered fishermen and the stoicism of their women… As a cross-section of west Cornish lives, a celebration of brave eccentricity and a prose illustration of the way those lives overlap and interrelate, The Swordfish and the Star takes some beating – Patrick Gale * Guardian *Knight recounts fascinating detail, but also shows a novelist’s skill in painting a vivid picture of real Cornwall and real Cornish people: Shane Meadows meets The Perfect Storm * Esquire *[Knight] is as adept with words as his hero Nutty Noah the Cadgwith ring-netter is with a shoal of pilchards … exhilarating – Tom Fort * Literary Review *The Swordfish and the Star gets top rating for its often searing honesty and its portrayal of fallibility in a harsh, unforgiving world… a terrific read… remarkable – Des Hannigan * Western Morning News, Devon *The reading public has become interested in the social anthropology of our relationship with nature and a slew of authors has explored the interdependence of people and the natural world. The best give us a language to read the world around us… This helps explain what’s different and admirable about The Swordfish and the Star… Knight does immersive journalism. This account of the lives of the fishing community on both sides of the Penwith Peninsula is driven by personal anecdote… the obsessive, personal tangle with the sea in search of fishy riches, the fortunes made, the lives lost, the courage and recklessness – Will Cohu * Oldie *A hugely refreshing dunk in the ocean … fascinating – Roger Cox * Scotland on Sunday *A genuine and powerful insight into the lives of people who brave the sea for a living * Choice Magazine *An immersive account… It is an eye-opening, dramatic and poignant account of life on Cornwall’s most dangerous coast and the people who fish it. * Western Morning News *

Gavin Knight’s first book, Hood Rat, about gun and gang crime in the UK’s cities, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Crime Writer’s Association Non-fiction Dagger in 2012. To research it, he spent two years with criminals, frontline police units and gang members from the inner cities of Britain. His work has appeared in publications including The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Prospect, Newsweek, New Statesman and Esquire; and he has appeared on BBC, CNN, ITN, Channel Four News and Sky News. This is his second book.