ships

Patrick Gallagher #1

This book has a ticking clock hanging over it even without any of the machinations of the plot – it’s set aboard the Lusitania on its final voyage.  As each chapter is set to a day, you can watch, as a reader, the time ticking down to May 7, 1915, the day of the disaster.  While there’s a mystery to be solved, the almost larger one is which of the characters encountered in the story will be alive by the end of the book. And this is a very well conceived mystery.

Many, many books are set during WWII, far fewer are set during WWI.  This one takes place at a point when the U.S. has not yet entered the war (the sinking of the Lusitania, of course, will prompt this), but the characters in the novel are still possessed by the war and it hangs over everything.  Shipboard mysteries are traditionally a time away from the happenings of the outside world, but in this book many of the characters are connected to the war in some form or fashion. read more