Literature on the law of salvage has been, to say the least, sparse in the quarter of a century since the last edition of Kennedy’s Civil Salvage. Completion of the new edition of that leading work is fortunately now imminent though, in the meantime, the publishers have bridged the gap with Geoffrey Brice’s new book. Coincidentally, Bröcker’s much smaller book has emerged.

Each book is divided almost equally into text and appendices. Both incorporate the anticipated 1910 Brussels Convention, LOF 1980 and the Montreal Draft Convention, plus other materials. Brice, in particular, is an extremel valuable sourcebook of materials relevant to salvage. It also includes, inter alia, relevant sections of the Merchant Shipping Acts, the Arbitration Acts, the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, as well as the TOVALOP and CRISTAL agreements, the U.K. Standard Conditions for Towage, Art. 221 of UNCLOS and specimens of pleadings and of an arbitration award.

Brice has the appearance of the standard practitioner’s text on maritime law, best typified by the British Shipping Laws series. It is, within the space available, thoroughly and competently written, and clearly presented, with quite a good index and, not surprisingly, informative as to the actual practice which governs much of the real “law” of salvage. The author has a definitely modern approach in that he is not only willing to discuss critically points which he believes to be suspect but positively eager to do so (albeit he might perhaps have been a little more forthcoming on some mainly unconsidered points, such as whether time charter hire can be an independent subject of salvage). Indeed, he shows no reticence in incorporating into the main text extensive discussion of non-binding material such as the proposals in the Montreal Draft Convention. This restores to life a subject in which the paucity of cases conceals a vitality fed by practical and arbitral activity and contractually motivated developments