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The Whaling Season by Kieran Mulvaney, Island Press, $26, ISBN 1559639784 Reviewed by John Bonner

WHEN Greenpeace sent anti-whaling expeditions to the Antarctic to confront the Japanese fleet, the chances of seriously disrupting the slaughter were as flimsy as the inflatable boats the crew tried to interpose between the harpooners and their prey. Even trying to locate the whaling ships in the vastness of the Southern Ocean was a huge challenge. And if, through luck as much as judgement, they did find the fleets, the whalers had the power to sail quickly out of radar range of the sluggish ocean-going…

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