A Fatal Crossing: Agatha Christie meets Titanic in this unputdownable mystery

Product Information

This one couldn’t be more up my street if it tried – a 1920s setting, a murder mystery, a transatlantic crossing aboard a ship… it’s the ultimate in closed circle mysteries! I think we will be seeing more of this type of occupation and reporting of current events in our future fiction reads, what a brilliant way to add social commentary to our reading lives. It’s quite clear that on a ship you’re a captive audience, but imagine being on said ship with a killer on board!

The whole story takes place over a four day period in November 1924 as the cruise liner Endeavour approaches New York from Southampton with two thousand passengers and crew on board. When an elderly man is found dead at the bottom of a staircase, the ship’s captain assumes – and hopes – that it’s an accident. However, James Temple, a Scotland Yard inspector, happens to be one of the passengers on the voyage and, after examining the body, he is convinced that the old man has been murdered. The captain gives Temple permission to investigate the crime, but only if he agrees to be accompanied by one of the ship’s officers, Timothy Birch.Overall it’s a good read and it was an entertaining few hours but it just didn’t have the depth and complexity I was hoping for. As a furious squall swept down Lake Michigan on June 23, 1950, a DC-4 with 58 souls on board flew from New York toward Minnesota. Minutes after midnight Captain Robert Lind requested a lower altitude as he began crossing the lake, but Air Traffic Control could not comply. That was the last communication with Northwest Airlines Flight 2501.

As a lifelong fan of Agatha Christie and any kind of murder mystery set in a hotel or a manor house this book instantly appealed to me. The author is clearly a fan as well, as scattered throughout are subtle nods to the Queen of Crime and her works. The party is thrown by Will, a young man who works in the antiques shop and among the guests are the head of the local tourist board and Damian White, a very rich man who has just bought the local lighthouse. Mr White is universally despised in the town and so when he is found dead in an upstairs room there are no shortages of suspects. November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail from Southampton carrying 2,000 passengers and crew on a week-long voyage to New York.So, you see, THAT plottwist alone is a good enough reason to read this book already. It's really good, you'll enjoy it. And again: take a look at that cover. Isn't it gorgeous? The action unfolds at a rip-roaring pace in this perfectly executed homage to the Golden Age of crime, which features a deviously devised plot boasting a final twist worthy of Christie herself. I loved it!' Anita Frank Of course, the inevitable happens, and one of the guests ends up dead, and it seems impossible for anyone to have left the hotel. So the murderer is among them, and it’s left to the guests, along with local PC Natalie Fay, to get to the bottom of the group’s hidden secrets and possible motives, and uncover the killer. The very first thing I noticed about this book was the author’s writing style. Calling it juvenile might go a bit too far but it was definitely too tame for my taste. Bland and boring, it was immediately forgettable and repetitive. It’s always “the ship stretches the best part of…” or “the best part of fifty thousand tons” or “the restaurant’s capacity to seat the best part of five hundred diners” or “the best part of an hour/minute”…