This book is a revised and somewhat enlarged second edition of a work which was initially published under the title The Security of a Maritime Lien. Nonetheless, the text remains a slim and lightweight volume. The change in title was presumably seen to be necessary so as to reflect the changes wrought. Whether the new choice of title is felicitous is far from certain. In particular, the chosen verb may be less than appropriate for the desired purpose. Given that a maritime lien (and also a statutory lien with which the book is also concerned) is in itself a security, the title is reduced to an exercise of securing a security. There might of course be dispute concerning the appropriate choice of verb to describe the process by which effect is given to the security of a maritime lienee. A simple and adequate choice would nonetheless seem to be the verb “to enforce”, and this is a formula which the author himself adopts when writing in the body of the text and in the preface. It might therefore have been happier to have titled the book—“How to Enforce a Maritime Lien”.

The subject of the book is the familiar (albeit not readily comprehended) concept of maritime liens and associated statutory rights of action in rem. The author comes to his task with bold ambition, for although the emphasis in the text is on English and United States law, there is also provided a summary account of the relevant law in some 25 other countries, ranging alphabetically from Algeria to the U.S.S.R. The legal statement is throughout shorn to the skin. Elaboration is eschewed in favour of an elementary and matter-of-fact exposition capable of ready digestion by all and sundry. For the practitioner the text is intended to be no more than a bench-book. The single sojourn into historical analysis, at the very commencement of the first chapter, is the least satisfactory aspect of the text. Otherwise, the author is content to tread the safer ground of descriptive generality. This he does with competence and the limited text is clearly presented.

The book appeared just before the enactment of the Supreme Court Act 1981, which repealed the Administration of Justice Act 1956, Part I, and which now provides (ss. 20–24) the statutory base to the Admiralty jurisdiction of the High Court. This is unfortunate but was presumably unavoidable. It has, however, made