David Grann's book chronicles the true story of the ill-fated Wager, a British warship wrecked in the frozen, uncharted wastelands off Patagonia in 1741 while trying to round Cape Horn in pursuit of a treasure-laden Spanish galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans." Delirious with scurvy and vexed by internal tensions, the ever-dwindling crew attempts to survive a hellish winter. Miraculously, a few of the crewmen make it home, where the real story begins, as they compete to print their differing accounts of the voyage while facing the prospect of court-martial. Grann has an unmatched eye for macabre details, and his account of the Wager's attempts to navigate the icebergs and typhoons of the cape is a masterpiece of narrative storytelling.