There is always a temptation when an author dies to pay him greater homage in retrospect than was ever given during his lifetime. It is both unnecessary and inappropriate in the case of Nevil Shute … to perform extensive ceremonial rites. A simple memorial service will do, and even this may be more than he would have wanted, or expected…. He was not an important writer, although in terms of influence he wrote, with "On the Beach," at least one important book. You approached him, as The Times Literary Supplement once remarked, by simply posing the question: Is his new story as good as the last? With him, "story" was almost everything.

I was continually coming across his novels—there are twenty-one all told—in what might be called the likely places: out-of-the-way summer cottages, Adirondacks cabins and similar vacation spots where others had preceded me. To put it...