In 1719 the Englishman James Knight, then in his seventies and vastly experienced in Arctic travel, set out with two ships and forty men to find the north-west passage. His ships entered Hudson Bay and were not seen again until almost three centuries later when Owen Beattie and John Geiger discovered them submerged and well-preserved near the remote Marble Island, known to the Inuit as "Dead Man's Island". This book is an archaeological detective story. Following their success in resolving the mystery of the fate of the Franklin expedition of 1845 (the story told in their book "Frozen in Time"), Beattie and Geiger have used every available tecnique - historical clues, archaeological excavations, forensic analysis of human remains, the discovery of the missing ships - to resolve the Arctic's greatest mystery. Piece by piece, the authors discover what realy happened. It climaxes with the cruel revelation that the last man died attempting to dig a grave for his last companion. The authors not only reveal the truth of Knight's fatal adventures, but uncover a tale of intrigue and betrayal.