Murder on the Caronia

Fresh from a harrowing transatlantic crossing aboard the Mauritania and having recently earned a reputation as the best team of shipboard sleuths to sail the seven seas, George Porter Dillman and Genevieve Masefield hardly set foot on land before embarking on another assignment.

Temporarily forsaking the Cunard Line to work as private detectives aboard the Minnesota, a combination freighter and passenger ship owned by the Great Northern Steamship Company, the couple are eagerly anticipating the prospect of a cruise bound for the Far East. Once aboard, the two begin to establish separate social circles in order to keep an eye on as many passengers and crew as possible. As the ship gets under way, it's smooth sailing, and George and Genevieve are hoping that perhaps this will be their first uneventful cruise. Unfortunately, their luck turns quickly as a fiery Catholic missionary is murdered in what proves to be the first in a series of crimes that will stretch them to their limit. Dillman and Genevieve have to use all their skills to combat danger on more then one front and to prevent an otherwise idyllic (and romantic) trip from becoming a terrifying nightmare.

Genevieve Masefield and George Porter Dillman make a living anonymously, cruising the seven seas aboard the early twentieth century's most extravagant sailing vessels as ship's detectives. In this line of work they've experienced more than their share of humanity. Along with the members of first class in all their finery, the card cheats and pickpockets plying their trade, the lascivious crew members and elderly cruise matrons that normally populate the voyages George and Genevieve work on, the Salsette boasts a group of travelers whose lives are set to intersect in ways none of them could have foreseen on dry land.

There are a pair of British men, traveling independently, who clearly know each other from another place and time; though each tries to hide it, there is no love lost between them. There's an elderly Indian man whose powers of deduction may be based on more earthly techniques than the mystical energy he claims to possess. Not to mention a young woman and her wheelchair-bound mother traveling on their own, determined to make new friends, who seemingly find their way smack into the middle of every bit of trouble aboard the Salsette-including murder.

George and Genevieve know that nothing in the cloying, claustrophobic confines of an ocean liner is as straightforward as it seems, and as the ship inches toward port the relationships between all of these people, both those in plain sight and some hidden from view, will be revealed. But will the exposure of the intricate web of deceit that's covered the Salsette lead George and Genevieve to the killer? Readers of Conrad Allen's sparkling ocean liner mysteries know that nothing stops this intrepid pair of shipboard detectives, and their newest adventure is sure to delight.

November 1907. Only a few short months after crossing the Atlantic aboard the Lusitania, George Porter Dillman and Genevieve Masefield sail from Liverpool on the maiden voyage of the Mauretania. Posing as passengers, Dillman and Genevieve endure a nightmare voyage during which severe weather batters the vessel unmercifully and keeps the passengers away from the decks. Dillman is instrumental in rescuing a crew member from being washed overboard but he is too late to save one of the First Class passengers from the same fate. At first, it looks like a case of death by misadventure. But Dillman and Genevieve come to realize that it was an act of calculated murder, connected with the presence on board of a record shipment of gold bullion - twelve tons in all - sent from the Bank of England.

George Porter Dillman and Genevieve Masefield, used to the grand opulence of the Cunard cruise line, are at first disappointed with the Marmora, a small, unimpressive ship that's part of the P&O shipping line, the company that now employs them as ship's detectives. They know that they're certain to encounter the same petty thefts and confidence tricksters they're used to dealing with, though they hope identifying the culprits among the 500 or so passengers will prove a little easier than it does aboard the great 2,000 passenger Cunard ships.

Their hope is misplaced, however, and they soon settle in to the routine of taking reports from agitated passengers and doing their best to recover whatever stolen jewelry or purloined cash the unfortunate travelers are missing. The cruise is certain to be unique in at least one respect, however: the Duke and Duchess of Fife, along with their two small children, are aboard, and the detectives' secondary task is to keep an eye on the royals and do their best to ensure their security.

When a dead body turns up, however, George and Genevieve know they've got their work cut out for them. Suspects abound, and on such a small ship keeping the demise of the poor victim a secret is proving tougher than they'd like. Through the eyes of Conrad Allen, a luxury cruise to Egypt in 1908 becomes a majestic voyage, albeit with murder in the mix, upon which readers will be eager to embark.

September 1907. George Porter Dillman sets sail from Liverpool on the Lusitania's maiden voyage. Hired by the ship's captain to pose as a passenger, George is in fact a private detective for the Cunard Line. In the first days of his voyage, George only has to deal with a few petty crimes. But then an expensive piece of jewelry is reported stolen and a body is found. Working quickly to solve both crimes, George makes an unusual friend, Genevieve Masefield, and the two uncover secrets aboard the ship that prove explosive.

The novel is set in England during World War I at Styles Court, an Essex country manor (also the setting of Curtain, Poirot's last case). Upon her husband's death, the wealthy widow, Emily Cavendish, inherited a life estate in Styles as well as the outright inheritance of the larger part of the late Mr. Cavendish's income. Mrs. Cavendish became Mrs. Inglethorp upon her recent remarriage to a much younger man, Alfred Inglethorp. Emily's two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, as well as John's wife Mary and several other people, also live at Styles. John Cavendish is the vested remainderman of Styles; that is, the property will pass to him automatically upon his stepmother's decease, as per his late father's will. Lawrence Cavendish would also come into a considerable sum of money. The income left to Mrs Inglethorp by her late husband would be distributed according to Mrs. Inglethorp's own will, which she changed at least once per year. If she had not changed her will since her marriage this would go to her husband. Late one night, the residents of Styles wake to find Emily Inglethorp dying of what proves to be strychnine poisoning. Hastings, a houseguest, enlists the help of his friend Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the nearby village, Styles St. Mary. Poirot pieces together events surrounding the murder. On the day she was killed, Emily Inglethorp was overheard arguing with someone, most likely her husband, Alfred, or her stepson, John. Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will — which no one can find. She ate little at dinner and retired early to her room with her document case. The case was later forced open by someone and a document removed. Alfred Inglethorp left Styles earlier in the evening and stayed overnight in the nearby village, so was not present when the poisoning occurred. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp. At first, Alfred is the prime suspect. He has the most to gain financially from his wife's death, and, since he is so much younger than Emily was, the Cavendishes already suspect him as a fortune hunter. Evelyn Howard, Emily's companion, seems to hate him most of all. His behaviour, too, is suspicious; he openly purchased strychnine in the village before Emily was poisoned, and although he denies it, he refuses to provide an alibi. The police are keen to arrest him, but Poirot intervenes by proving he could not have purchased the poison. Scotland Yard police later arrest Emily Inglethorp’s oldest stepson, John Cavendish. He inherits under the terms of her will, and there is evidence to suggest he also had obtained poison. Poirot clears Cavendish by proving it was, after all, Alfred Inglethorp who committed the crime, assisted by Evelyn Howard, who turns out to be his kissing cousin, not his enemy. The guilty pair poisoned Emily by adding a precipitating agent, bromide (obtained from Mrs Inglethorp's sleeping powder), to her regular evening medicine, causing its normally innocuous strychnine constituents to sink to the bottom of the bottle where they were finally consumed in a single, lethal dose. Their plan had been for Alfred Inglethorp to incriminate himself with false evidence, which could then be refuted at his trial. Once acquitted, due to double jeopardy, he could not be tried for the crime a second time should any genuine evidence against him be subsequently discovered, hence prompting Poirot to keep him out of prison when he realized that Alfred wanted to be arrested.

Full of energy and short of funds, old chums Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley decide to form the "Young Adventurers," and advertise themselves as willing to "go anywhere and do anything." Asked by a British Intelligence official to find a woman named Jane Finn, who disappeared with sensitive government documents, they soon find that their whimsical idea has drawn them into a complicated web of intrigue, intelligence agents, dubious identities, missing government papers, false clues - and all-too-real danger.