if you like your novels written in a brilliant style, complex and page turning, crammed full of information, if you like your novels to challenge and filled with strange loops and connections,'dead water' is the book for you. 
primarily a story about the history of container shipping and the evolution of the understanding of the multi currents that operate within life, it's a novel about how hidden things reside in complex systems, both natural and man made, the book is a poem to our complete mercy to forces beyond understanding and control.
the novel is a fractal, breathtakingly beautiful, ever evolving and the characters are exotic and global personalities that the reader befriends only to read helplessly as they undergo the terrible fate the author inflicts upon them.
every sentence is perfectly written, and lingers as you move to the next, simon ing is my new favourite writer, he has something to say, and says it very well. there's a film makers dream in here somewhere, i savoured the pages describing a train crash and saw the most beautiful imagery in my mind, the two children's fates taking the most incredible transformation into something supernatural seemed to have a very visual and visceral quality, as chaos moved at totally different velocities within the carriages. i saw slow motion currents converge with fast motion in the same frames, details of debris spinning through, it was really a powerful piece of writing within a very good book.
this is one writer i'd like to read more off, i have picked up 'the weight of numbers' and look forwards to reading that in the near future.