Tom HindleRecensioni

I rather liked it. The overall style of this novel reminds me a bit of Stuart Turton, but the plot is more down to earth and less spooky. Many of the characters are from the well-worn Agatha Christie stock, but they fit together well, although admittedly I have read more imaginative sketches of an artistic community. The end of the book is wrenching and unsettling, but Hindle carefully developed the sense of foreboding and an attentive reader should have seen that one coming!

My biggest beef is that the detectives start out by believing Blake’s story rather uncritically. They sort of have to, because this sets up the rest of the events to unroll, but rationally they ought to be a lot more suspicious of it. And the shipboard setting of the great SS Endeavour is a bit of an illogical dreamland, though develops a nice atmosphere. From there onwards, it is a bit lacking in the quality that a traditional detective story should have—a rational sequence of events.

What makes it still interesting is that the book takes the traditional stock charac ter of detective fiction, the naive sidekick who asks all the questions on behalf of the reader, and imaginatively warps and twists the concept.

The wedding of a lifestyle influencer and a rich hedge fund manager in a castle on Lake Garda is a glamorous event. For both families, however, there are secrets that are about to be revealed. Robyn is an outsider and not welcomed by her boyfriend's family but when two murders happen she believes that she can use logic to get to the truth.

I do like Hindle's books, they are true to their antecedents as modernised 'Golden Age' detective novels but with a modern twist. Here it is the 'locked room' plot, guests on an isolated island, with the variety of backstories and hence motives. It seems odd to say but this is a light novel that skips along very happily. Bizarrely it is a fun read!

This book recreates the atmosphere of the golden age mystery, with a murder occurring in a hotel that has been more or less cut off from the rest of the world because of the sudden onset of a violent storm. It offers an additional twist in that the events take place during a staged murder event held on New Year’s Eve.

The scene is set with references to the nearby lighthouse, which has been the subject of conflicting planning applications, and to two separate deaths from years ago. It soon emerges that, for a variety of reasons, much of the population of the local town, and virtually all of the people attending the murder party, has reason to resent the prospective developer. Surprise, surprise! Who should turn out to be the last arrival for the party than the developer himself.

As a long-time crime fiction junkie, I enjoyed this novel, although I think it was all a bit too contrived, and I felt that the characterisation was a bit weak, with no cliché knowingly overlooked. I also worked out who the murderer was very early on which, while gratifying to my never sated vanity, is probably not a good sign.

It's a darkish whodunit murder mystery story set on a British transatlantic liner in 1924. A ship's officer and a dodgy Scotland Yard detective investigate the suspicious death of an elderly art dealer. There's plenty of intrigue over missing art with several red herrings. The plot gets confused by the addition of a secondary storyline that acts as a motivating force for the ship's officer, but unfortunately it is never resolved. (Is there a sequel in the works to deal with this?). The shipboard setting and a cast of dodgy passengers add depth to a busy trope-filled story. There's a surprising twist at the end to bring the story to a bittersweet conclusion.
Recommended reading.

New Years Eve and at Hamlet Wick on the Devon coast, a group assemble for an evening of fine food and a murder mystery. All are linked to the village through the death of two people many years ago, one an accident, one an unsolved murder. However just as the evening is about to begin properly, one of the guests is discovered dead.
I liked Hindle's first novel and I admire the sentiment behind this one. In updating the classic 'locked room' mystery Hindle has put his writing up against many of the genre's masters. This is a clever novel but I didn't find it particularly convincing, the plot has huge holes in it and the ending was weak to my mind. Unfortunately the book sits between two rocks and didn't engage me as much as I would hope.

1924 and the liner 'The Endeavour' is sailing to New York when one of the passengers is found dead. For Officer Tim Birch this is an inconvenience but when a man identifies himself as a Scotland Yard detective and insists on investigating, Birch is drawn in. With only a limited time to catch the killer and with plots a plenty onboard the two race to unmask the killer before the ship docks.
This is a book which appears to be a simple 'Christie'-esque throwback novel in which an overly complicated plot involving class and art is central. However there is more lurking, subplots around organised crime and mental health actually make the story more compelling and the final twist is very clever.

A Fatal Crossing is a locked-room mystery with a difference: it's set aboard the Endeavour, an ocean liner bound for New York with 2,000 passengers, amongst them a potential killer.

It's no spoiler to say an unexpected death occurs at the beginning of the story. An elderly man is found at the foot of a flight of steps. One of the ship's officers, Timothy Birch, is tasked with dealing with what seems to be a tragic accident but when a Scotland Yard policeman, James Temple, who is also on board, takes an interest it appears that there might be a more sinister reason for the death.

Birch and Temple make for an interesting investigating duo. It's fair to say Temple is the lead and he's more maverick in his techniques than the quite strait-laced Birch, but their back-stories make them particularly intriguing. Birch is the narrator and we follow him as he travels around the ship with Temple. I enjoyed the descriptions of each section of the boat, from the extravagance of first class to the pleasant but smaller areas in second class, and then to the cramped conditions of third class.

I must admit to getting a bit befuddled at times as to who was who on the ship but not to the point that I couldn't follow what was going on. Many of the passengers are travelling to an art fair in New York and so there's quite a bit of crossover between them, and it seems that all roads lead back to a very special painting. It's a very engaging story that kept me hooked all the way through and which really kept me guessing in more ways than one.

Set in 1924, A Fatal Crossing is in the golden age style of crime writing and it has a definite nod to Agatha Christie's work. It goes along at a fine pace with a clever ending that I loved. I thought it was an excellent historical crime mystery.