Undecorated heroism: Aitkenhead delivers a simple, stirring tribute

All At Sea; By Decca Aitkenhead

Decca Aitkenhead with her husband Tony Pic: Decca Aitkenhead

Memoir; All At Sea; By Decca Aitkenhead, Fourth Estate, €22.60

The moment that her partner Tony drowned on a Jamaican beach, Decca Aitkenhead readily attests, was an eerie, unending blur.

But in her account of that fateful, confusing morning, the nod to cliché ends there. In fact, her English reserve means that her first impulse is to tell her partner to stop making a scene, drawing attention to himself on a beach that ...