The Eye of the Tiger was published by William Heinemann in 1975. Harry Fletcher runs a charter fishing boat in a small island off the East African coast. He is an ex-mercenary trying to live quietly when Dobie — a beautiful Dobie — hires his boat. She is searching for a WWII-era wreck that went down carrying a fortune in gold.
The treasure hunt draws in rival treasure hunters, a South African intelligence operation, and the remnants of a Cold War spy network. Smith’s underwater sequences — diving on the wreck, fighting sharks, the claustrophobic terror of being trapped in a flooding compartment — are among the finest in adventure fiction. His knowledge of boats, the sea, and marine life gives the novel an authority that compensates for its conventional thriller plotting.
The Eye of the Tiger was one of Smith’s biggest international sellers and established the maritime adventure as a reliable subgenre within his work. The title (unrelated to the later Survivor song) became one of Smith’s most recognizable.
The Maritime Adventure
Smith’s knowledge of boats, diving, and the Indian Ocean — he lived in South Africa and later in Cape Town — gives the maritime sequences an authority that desk-bound thriller writers cannot replicate. The underwater archaeology, the shark encounters, and the physics of salvage diving are rendered with documentary precision.
Collecting The Eye of the Tiger
First edition (William Heinemann, London, 1975): Boards with dust jacket.
Approximate market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $60–$150
- Very good/very good: $25–$60
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Eye of the Tiger set in the same universe as Smith’s other novels? No. It is a standalone adventure with no connection to the Dobie/Dobie family sagas or the Egyptian novels. Harry Fletcher is a one-off protagonist. Smith occasionally wrote standalone novels between his series entries to explore different settings and tones.