Product Description

New England English teacher Sarah Deane, with husband Alex and feisty Aunt Julia in tow, is getting ready to board the Queen Victoria for a luxurious transatlantic cruise. But before they even set sail, two passengers are killed-- both members of the British-American trade commission. Now Sarah must wade through a sea of peculiar passengers and quirky crew members to find a killer aboard Vicky-- and drop anchor on the seafaring scoundrel...

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1374937 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
The heart, style, and intended readership of J.S. Borthwick's latest mystery romp involving Sarah Deane--a teaching fellow and doctoral candidate at Bowmouth College in Maine--and her physician husband, Alex McKenzie, is crystallized with this little exchange:

"I think," said Julia, standing up and gathering her handbag to her breast, "that we can give Deedee and Richard a miss. Who in God's name wants to hear all the ghastly details about people being chopped up with cutlasses and clinging to rafts?"

Alex smiled down at Julia. "You'd rather read Dick Francis describing maimed horses and mutilated jockeys? Or," he added with a side glance at Sarah, who was a fan of Brother Cadfael and his felonious associates in 13th-century Shrewsbury, "entertain yourself with poisoned yeomen and decapitated monks?"

Sarah and Alex are sailing home from Europe with Sarah's elderly but feisty Aunt Julia, and the supposed subject of their conversation is whether to attend a shipboard lecture on pirates. But what Borthwick is really doing is placing her readers in familiar territory--that comfortable country where Dick Francis and Ellis Peters meet Agatha Christie for tea.

In this country, anyone who gets on board a brand new ocean liner (in this case, the Queen Victoria) knows that the shipboard activities will include murder, as well as shuffleboard, and that Sarah and Alex will clear things up long before the ship docks in New York. One reader's déjà vu is another's homage, and Borthwick writes with verve and grace--as witnessed by the popularity of past titles such as The Bridled Groom, The Case of the Hook-Billed Kites, Dolly Is Dead, The Down East Murders, Dude on Arrival, The Garden Plot, and The Student Body. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly
Sarah Deane, teaching fellow at a Maine college, and her husband, Alex, an internist (both last seen in The Garden Plot), are in unfamiliar waters?literally?when they escort Sarah's feisty aunt Julia, 70, back to the States on the maiden voyage of the British liner Queen Victoria. This cheeky mystery wastes no time in setting up a convoluted plot that puts the naturally paranoid Sarah on full alert. A member of the British Trade Commission is hit by an automobile and killed just before boarding. Another member dies in his cabin from a seemingly accidental fall. Sarah takes it upon herself to protect a third member, a youthful drunk and wastrel, with his free-wheeling girlfriend, Liza, assisting. Circling around Sarah and the equally suspicious Aunt Julia are several sinister shipmates, none of whom is quite what he or she seems. What about the frenetic duo lecturing on "Ships in Peril"? Is the object of Aunt Julia's shipboard romance a clever con man? How about the chaplain's sneaky assistant? And what is the ship's murky connection to the Titanic? By relentlessly prying and eavesdropping, Julia gets a handle on the situation?and puts herself and Aunt Julia in grave danger. Always witty, sometimes farcical, full of wonderfully arcane allusions to old movies, this novel succeeds as a tightly controlled and unflagging thriller.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Series star/amateur sleuth (The Garden Plot, LJ 3/1/97) Sara Deane and her husband board a fabulous British luxury liner for its maiden voyage, but not without portents. When traffic claims a trade-commission member outside his hotel and another dies unexpectedly in his stateroom, Sara suspects a plot. More engaging work from a proven author.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

An enjoyable book marred by mistakes
This most recent paperback adventure for Sarah, Alex and Julia was enjoyable. I liked the interplay among the chief characters and the picture of life on a cruise. I have to say, though, that the vast majority of the entertainments (excluding creeping around spying on crew and/or fellow passengers) sound absolutely terrible, and any plans I may have had for a cruise have been put on hold. I hope that the author was being facetious.

I agree with other reviewers that the plot was weak, and the motivations more so. Everything was very convenient, and the interaction among the various police departments of different countries struck me as wildly improbable.

My major complaint with the book ties in with the substandard copy editing job it received. While the grammar and spelling were largely fine, the punctuation was not, and a tendency to forget to insert quotation marks at the end of a character's remarks was particularly distracting. There were also some factual errors that the characters would not have made (one example is that a fan of Brother Cadfael notes that those books took place during the thirteenth century; the books are largely set during the war between Stephen and Maude, which took place in the twelfth, not the thirteenth, century). Another example is that the piano on board is referred to as a Beckstein; the correct spelling is, I believe, Bechstein. But these are minor matters; the quotation mark problem was not. I hope corrections can be made for subsequent printings. St. Martin's Press is a wonderful press responsible for most of my mystery reading; typographical errors should not interfere with its image.

Not up to series' standards
I like this series and have read all the previous installments. This one has a promising setting--a luxurious ocean liner on her maiden voyage--but I agree with others that the motivation for the crimes is not very credible. It has become fashionable to bash the blockbuster movie Titanic, and the author does so here, via her characters. I found that attitude disingenuous, in that Borthwick is obviously cashing in on the interest in the disaster stirred by the movie. Style and characters remain engaging, but the plot in this one is definitely lacking.

Weak Motive Behind This Crime
Most series that survive into a ninth volume would appear to support some kind of loyal following. This particular mystery, being my first attempt at the books featuring Sarah Deane by J.S. Borthwick, would not be likely to cause me to become a staunch fan.

The setting would seem to be fun and inviting. Sarah, husband Alex and her crotchety aunt, Julia, are returning from Europe by ocean liner. Multiple attempts at thinning out the ship board population (some attempts successful and others less so) cause the Deane party to become immersed in shipboard friendships while unraveling the puzzle. Various aspects of the Titanic (cinematic and otherwise) are built into the mystery but the author captures the authentic flavor of traveling by "floating hotel", Harrods and all. The new acquaintances who become part of Sarah's and Alex's circle are distinctive enough in their portrayal but rather lacking in serious motivation for murder -- at least a motivation that I could take seriously.

An innocuous piece of fluff but not exactly an absorbing one.