The characters are not especially likeable and I'm not sure there's a single one you can trust but they're all very well crafted. I could picture each and every one. Mounting an investigation, the pair uncover the theft of a priceless painting, and encounter a string of suspects with secrets to hide. With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch's search for the culprit is fraught with danger. A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jónasson 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 absolutely loved it' Anita Frank

I would maybe have liked a little more of certain characters and there were a couple of things that didn't quite seem credible but I did find myself drawn into the story. I enjoyed what I read of this more than the A Fatal Crossing, because it felt more focused and more clearly plotted. However, there are a lot of characters and perspectives though, which I was struggling to keep on top of, but this may have improved had I continued to read. It’s New years eve and a murder mystery party is being held at Hamlet Hall hotel. A hotel that has seen better days. In a secluded area of North Devon and there is no phone signal. There are eight guests, all with secrets of their own. Which had something to do with a body that is found on a beach over twenty years ago. What took the cake though was the ending. My initial review said that I gasped out loud – I did!!!!! – but upon reflection, I think it’s an utterly underserved plot twist meant to do nothing but that: induce gasps. I don’t want to compare it with GOTs “Red Wedding” because different things happen, but it was about as unexpected. I usually LOVE unexpected plot twists, I live for them in my murder mysteries, but this one was so out of the blue, so far-fetched, ungracious and ungrateful to everything that came prior that it felt wrong and unearned. It’s super hard to talk about it without spoiling anything but it’s basically meant to turn the whole novel on its head and make you see it in a different light. I just thought it was lazy writing to make an otherwise super dull plot and average novel more exciting. I mean, I’m 100% pro-choice, I just wish the author had chosen a different ending for this book.He writes “relatively developed characters” and then gives a 3.5/5 I hear you say. Well, our main protagonist, Timothy Birch, an officer on the ship, is a relatively likeable man. Neither he nor James Temple, the detective on board who leads the case are overly enjoyable as people. Neither of them has a sense of humour, neither seems to particularly like anyone and they don’t really offer that strong of an opinion of anything in life. 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. The two detectives are interesting characters in their own rights. Birch is struggling with the tragic events of his own life which slowly and painfully come to the surface in the story. Temple is abrasive, rude and really quite arrogant – until events conspire to change his approach. Together, they are an unusual and stormy partnership – something that is intriguing to follow. That said, I’d whole-heartedly recommend this lively and entertaining mystery. The twists are suitably twisty and the denouement genuinely surprising. The setting is vivid and the characters are well-drawn, even if you do love to hate them at times!

Most of the characters are unlikable but that did not spoil the story at all if anything it only added more suspects to my list. From the despised to the pitied they are not only well-developed but realistic. My main reason for DNFing is because the premise is inaccurate, although my knowledge of this only comes from my career. Essentially, there's upset in a Devon village when the lighthouse is to be developed by a local developer who left for London as a teen and has returned; he is hugely unpopular because he 'stole' the planning permission for development from a popular local who also runs the tourist information. I'm a Town Planner and it's impossible to steal a planning permission, it belongs the building, not to a person. My other issue, that the local council is believed to have been bribed by the developer to give him the planning permission, comes across as lazy plotting that bashes 'corrupt' councils. Anyone can apply for planning permission, for any building, but only the person who owns it can implement that permission, if approved, and undertake the development.

The storyline ensures that the reader is kept entertained and towards the end, there was a scenario that seemed to present itself to me as a possible twist, however, I was completely wrong - there certainly was a twist, an almighty twist at that, but not the one I was expecting! Temple and Birch make an interesting partnership, particularly as it’s a very reluctant one! As an intelligent, competent and experienced detective, Temple is not at all happy about having an inept and bumbling ship’s officer shadowing his every move, saying the wrong things and interfering with the investigation. Birch is our narrator, and as we only see things from his point of view, Temple comes across as bad-tempered, rude and hostile, but there are hints that there’s more to each character than meets the eye. While Temple’s past and his reasons for boarding the Endeavour are shrouded in mystery, we learn that Birch is haunted by the disappearance of his young daughter Amelia and the breakdown of his marriage. I enjoyed the claustrophobic atmosphere of this book and the setting of the slightly run down hotel. The coastal location really added to the tension and the feeling of being trapped. I was hoping that the murder mystery aspect of the book would play out more and be more incorporated into the plot as that was what drew me to the book in the first place. While the plot was entertaining, it wasn’t as tightly drawn as I would have liked - there were a few plot holes that I couldn’t bring myself to ignore. I had guessed the killer about halfway through the book and although the final twist was one I didn’t see coming, it stretched my credulity somewhat. I love a good closed circle murder mystery so this was right up my street and so well done. There's a small(ish) cast of not especially likeable characters, some secrets from the past, a few grudges and a lot of twists and turns.

My favourite westward Atlantic crossing detective novel is Peter Lovesey's The Fake Inspector Dew (1981), but A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle is a first-rate addition to the corpus [...] A very good debut novel' The Critic Read more Look Inside Details When the body of an elderly passenger is found at the bottom of a flight of stairs on board the Endeavour - a liner sailing from Southampton to New York - ship’s officer Birch is tasked with assisting an onboard police officer with his investigation. So begins the unravelling of a story which involves stolen paintings, long-standing grudges, and keeping up appearances. With the wedding guests trapped as they await the police, old secrets come to light and family rivalries threaten to bubble over.I initially rated this three stars but I decided that a book that made me let out a groan [ frustrated, not sexual] loud enough to shake awake my co-workers at our late shift at the psych ward deserves two stars max. There are multiple layers of mystery that overlap as the story unfolds, including the earlier deaths of a young boy in a tragic fall and a previous murder, the discovery of which is the cause of Will’s PTSD.