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

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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. I was looking forward to reading The Murder game after reading the authors first novel The fatal crossing and enjoyed it. 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. I was drawn to A Fatal Crossing first by the cover, then when I saw that it was a Golden Age-style mystery novel set at sea in the 1920s, I was even more interested!

With no phone signal and no way out of the house, the others are trapped with a killer in their midst. With twist after gut-punching twist, A Fatal Crossing really is an ingenious thriller. Highly recommended.' M. W. Craven Now, with just days remaining until the Endeavour reaches New York, their search for the culprit is fraught with danger.

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Set almost 100 years ago ( 1924), A Fatal Crossing deftly combines a sense of its period setting with the plot structure and dramatic devices that readers expect a century later. 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! Whilst there’s a great twist at the end that I hadn’t seen coming, the main murder mystery just didn’t hold my attention. The book felt over long in places, and the storyline about the missing daughter felt too much like a plot device to really inspire any sympathy for Birch. I was first drawn to this book because of the beautiful cover, it’s very in keeping with the story. This is your standard murder-at-the-party format that includes many twists and turns that accompany the complex narrative. There are deep lies and discoveries that intertwine between past and present and Hindle has really set a stride with this one. There are layers to these characters motives that are expressive but brutal. As before, we've had to pay attention to close details to follow everyone's steps and motives. This was an engaging read, but it did fall short on its surprises. The writing is innovative and can be deemed as a step up from A Fatal Crossing but the characters weren't as interesting. This could be more since A Fatal Crossing was one of my favourite reads of the year.

Birch is an intriguing character. He's reeling from a recent family trauma, the details of which emerge over the course of the narrative, and his resulting taciturn introversion ostracises him from the majority of his fellow officers and crewmen aboard Endeavour. Nevertheless, he makes an intuitive and increasingly engaged associate for the acerbic Temple as together they view the body, search a cabin and interview several passengers who may have known the victim. Seeing readers give A Fatal Crossing such a warm reception has been nothing short of incredible," he said. "I wrote this book as a passion project at my kitchen table, hardly daring to think that I’d finish it, let alone that folks might one day want to read it – to be announcing today that it’s featuring as Waterstones Thriller of the Month is beyond anything I could have imagined. Looking to the future, I’m proud to be teaming up with the brilliant team at Century on two more novels. I’ve been working hard to cook up a pair of mysteries just as thrilling as A Fatal Crossing and I can’t wait to see what readers make of A Murder Game when it hits shelves in February." While most of A Fatal Crossing conforms with a traditional "whodunnit" mystery format in the traditional style, the dramatic ending comprises a shift into thriller territory, with a great twist that I certainly didn't see coming!

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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. Century has snapped up two more crime novels from Tom Hindle, whose debut, A Fatal Crossing, has just been crowned Waterstones Thriller of the Month for August. 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 Whilst the plot was generally well structured, it felt too slow - the whole story takes place over just four days, but the narrative made it feel like several weeks. Fewer clichéd descriptions and less outrage on Birch's part would have gone some way towards remedying this, but the whole book would have benefited from more stringent editing and refinement.

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. The story opens with the death of an elderly gentleman on board ‘Endeavour’, a ship crossing to New York in 1926. A ship’s officer, Timothy Birch, tells the story of how he investigates, alongside a Scotland Yard officer (James Temple) also on the voyage. It’s a story that crosses the boundaries of First, Second and Third Class passenger areas, has a cast of many suspects, and is much more involved than it first seems… 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. This historical murder mystery set on an atlantic crossing in the 1920s is unlike my usual reading choices but it turned out to be a good choice nonetheless. This was a story that started out with what seemed to be a reasonably easy to fathom death that may or may not be a crime. All this evolved into an incredibly knotted web of shenanigans. I was hooked from the first chapter. 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.I loved how the game was constructed and how everything went down hill when a murder happened during the murder mystery party. Thanks to Sarah Harwood for putting this book into my hands – I am grateful. As always, opinions are entirely my own. The setting of the ship had such potential for a real air of mystery and suspense but I didn’t get a sense of this at all. 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! 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.

For some unknown reason (most likely my inability to read a synopsis properly) I thought this was going to be a historical who dunnit in the style of Agatha Christies And Then There Were None but while there are some similarities it's a little bit different. For one thing it's set in the present day with a group of residents from a small village, and a few unexpected guests, attending a murder mystery party on New Year's Eve at the local hotel. There were some incredible twists to the plot, none more than the final twist. I would never have seen that coming and I really didn't sense any foreshadowing even on reflection. Raymond maybe had me wondering at something but I wasn't sure what. I really wanted to enjoy this book. I love Agatha Christie so a murder mystery set in the 1920’s sounded right up my street. Unfortunately I didn’t find myself particularly engaged in the story, or really caring about the outcome. Mounting an investigation, the pair uncover the theft of a priceless painting, and encounter a string of suspects with secrets to hide.

For the above reasons, whilst I genuinely did enjoy the story and wanted to know how it ended, I do not think I would have persevered to the end had I not felt obliged to leave an informed review. 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. The owner of Hamlet Hall has organised a murder mystery evening with a 1920s twist, and everyone has their own part to play. The story is told from multiple povs, each with a very different and distinctive voice. I will admit that I struggled a little at the start to get the cast of characters straight and remember the relationships between them but I think that's mostly a me issue. I have a terrible memory for names and generally prefer a book to only have one or two povs. Once I got into the story I had absolutely no problems and found myself enjoying the different perspectives.