With her new novel, Toronto writer Lynne Kositsky has delivered an action-packed adventure that doesn’t let up from its opening scene. When Noah Vaile, a runaway, is kidnapped from the streets of 17th-century Bristol and conscripted to serve William Thatcher on a voyage to Virginia, his life can’t help but change.

Over the following 200 pages, Vaile, rechristened Robin Starveling, faces shipboard intrigue, a hurricane, a shipwreck, and a search for treasure on the Isle of Devils, guided by mysterious emblems Thatcher keeps in his sea chest. The novel, which is drawn (broadly) from William Strachey’s 1625 A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight (the work that inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest), speeds along at a breakneck pace, building cliffhanger upon cliffhanger.

Unfortunately, a series of incidents does not a story make, nor does it result in a particularly satisfying novel. Minerva’s Voyage lacks even rudimentary character development, and as a result, the book is peopled with types rather than individuals. The cabin boy Peter Fence, who becomes Starveling’s friend, is little more than a moralistic foil for the rugged main character. Thatcher, meanwhile, lacks a moustache to twirl villainously, but makes up for this with his constant scratching.

Despite the incessant perils faced by Starveling, the novel lacks suspense. Because of this, a glib certitude descends upon the events: of course Starveling will find the treasure, but ultimately, it’s difficult to care.