[2][3] The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls from a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.

After a discussion about the nearby Ship-Trap Island, which has an evil reputation among sailors, Whitney goes to bed while Rainsford stays on deck to smoke his pipe.

Rainsford swims to Ship-Trap and finds an opulent chateau inhabited by two Cossacks: the owner, General Zaroff, and his gigantic deaf-mute servant, Ivan.

After escaping the Russian Revolution, he purchased Ship-Trap, built a home for himself, and rigged the island with lights to lure passing ships into the jagged rocks surrounding it.

He takes the survivors captive and hunts them for sport, giving them food, clothing, a knife, and a three-hour head start, and using only a small-caliber pistol for himself.

The next morning, he sacrifices his knife to build a trap that kills Ivan when he stumbles into it, then dives off a cliff and into the sea to escape Zaroff and his approaching dogs.

[12] Clive Cussler wrote a book entitled Dragon in which he mentions Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" and has a few long chapters where his Japanese manhunter emulates the story.