Great Shipwrecks of the Maine Coast is by no means an exhaustive account of that storied seaboard. As author Jeremy D'Entremont notes in his introduction, "there are over seven hundred known wrecks in the Gulf of Maine. ... It would be impossible to include information on every maritime disaster on the coast of Maine in any single volume.

Beginning with the wrecks of the Angel Gabriel and the James in the great hurricane of 1635 and ending with the daring rescue of the men from the stricken Oakey L. Alexander in a 1947 gale, D'Entremont looks at nine famous disasters, then ends with a tenth chapter examining many more shipwrecks in brief. His goal here was not volume, obviously, but a sampling of major incidents.

The book succeeds at its goal. It's interesting, and very informative. The author has a strong voice for this sort of thing; he educates but doesn't lecture, and the reader comes away with a fair understanding of each incident. His research is thorough, and the stories he tells fairly drip with tension.

As D'Entremont explains in the book, shipwrecks "represent a pure, primal form of human drama. It's a cliche to say that disasters bring out the best and worst in people, but it's also absolutely true. ... Given the intense physical and emotional stress produced by a shipwreck, flight and fight are two sides of the same coin." Also, he says, wrecks at sea can "serve as rude reminders that our modern technology hasn't given us mastery over our oceans," and a wreck without survivors can pose a mystery that's hard to solve.

Anyone with a passing interest in the history of New England shipwrecks should consider picking this up.