It’s clear that Dyer heavily researched everything to do with the Titanic. The novel is well-written and is historically accurate. This motivates him to discover the truth, no matter what. Lord’s explanation as to why he didn’t go to Titanic’s rescue immediately changed over time, and Steadman finds that pages from the Californian’s log had been torn out. The Californian’s captain, Stanley Lord, was notified, but didn’t issue any orders until 5am the next morning, when it was too late (the Titanic sunk at 2:20am). It turns out that Herbert Stone, the Californian’s Third Officer, saw the Titanic firing distress rockets on the horizon from midnight onwards, and he wasn’t the only one. Why didn’t the Californian come to Titanic’s assistance? This is what John Steadman, a fictional American journalist, endeavours to find out. If the Californian had come, many or perhaps all of the 1,500 people who died could have been saved. But not all of us know about the SS Californian: the closest ship to the Titanic while she was sinking, but failed to come to her assistance. We all know of this infamous ship that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after colliding with an iceberg. The novel is set in 1912 and takes place during and after the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Published in 2016, The Midnight Watch is a historical fiction novel by David Dyer, a former London lawyer who now writes and teaches in Sydney.
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