Fire And High Water: Nigel Tranter

The Hebrides and West Highland seaboard are amongst the most beautiful and exciting places on earth but not all of the excitement is in the scenery. There is an ongoing clash between the local crofter fisherman and the deep sea trawlermen and the seine-netters who come from all over Europe to fish the narrow waters. The 'foreigners' often trawl close inshore, well inside the three-mile limit, to sweep clean not only the local fishermen's home grounds but the fish breeding stocks as well, destroying the stock for years to come. With thousands of miles of coast, the few fishery cruisers cannot patrol and protect it all. Don and Ian MacDonald on holiday in Skye get mixed up in this conflict and find themselves in very hot water when they decide to put their oar in the help their fisherman friend Murdo Macleod - when a small private feud with a foreign craft soon escalates into full-scale war.