Shipwreck

In this later book the protagonist is like a younger Tod Moran, shipping out with no allies in a probably vain attempt to discover what has happened to his father, apparently shipwrecked and lost on a vague island in the least known part of the South Pacific.  Pease deals with racism in his usual manner, head-on, when Renny has to take instruction from a Filipino cook:  At first young Renny shows disdain for the "brown-skinned messman", certain that he could not amount to much.  Yet as the plot unfolds, it is the Filipino messman who not only says Renny's life, but gives him direction: the brown-skinned cook turns out to be both a skilled psychologist and the wisest person aboard.  Later, when we are among illiterate savages, one of whom is a sinister menace, we learn that among all groups there are both good and bad.  Without revealing the plot, there are some interesting twists, especially after the second shipwreck!