This is an auction for IN THE WET by Nevil Shute.

From Wikipedia:

"In The Wet is a novel by Nevil Shute that was first published in the United Kingdom in 1953. It contains many of the typical elements of a hearty and adventurous Shute yarn such as flying, the future, mystic states, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The story is opened by its initial narrator – an Anglican priest in the Bush Brotherhood named Roger Hargreaves – who describes his ordinary circumstances in a large parish of the Australian outback in 1953. As part of his duties, he has to minister to the dying and this brings him into contact with an aged, alcoholic, opium smoking, diseased, ex-pilot and ex-ringer named Stevie. Caught in Stevie's squalid cabin in a heavy rainy season, Hargreaves struggles with recurring malaria whilst on death watch for Stevie. As both men are in altered mental states the story shifts and Stevie becomes a decorated member of the Royal Australian Air Force, telling his story to Hargreaves. But this is a story set 30 years in the future, in 1983. The England of the 1983 in the story is a technically advanced country that has been abused and bled dry by Socialism. Austerity is the watchword, and rationing is still in force. It is an England in which the Royal Family is revered by the common people, but abused by politicians who use them as whipping boys for the economic woes of England...."

More on Wikipedia.

Very favourable reviews on Amazon.com.

Undated morocco-bound hardback c.1970, from the same edition as the books in the photograph.

353 pages.

Very good condition.

The cost of shipping is $3.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.