A Locked Ship Mystery
From Dreaming Spies:
A quick survey of the Thomas Carlyle gave me its layout: main deck below, promenade deck with our staterooms and First-Class dining, boat deck above us with saloon bar, smoking room, and a few more elaborate staterooms. Above that was the sun deck, from which rose the ship’s bridge, wireless rooms, and the like. I claimed a relatively peaceful deck chair on the shaded promenade. Tropical coastline glided past. The damp pages turned. For two hours, absolutely nothing happened: no shots rang out, no tusked boars rampaged down the decks, no flimsy aeroplanes beckoned.
Normal life can be extraordinarily restful.
Cross-section of a cruise ship, engine room to salon.
Crime fiction is full of locked rooms, where a limited cast is forced together and picked off, one at a time. Admittedly, Dreaming Spies isn’t one of those, but the sensation of claustrophobia and dangers pressing in is a motif a writer plays on before she moves on to other things. And if this apparently peaceful moment can bring a reminder of the dangers in the adventure they’re coming from, so much the better. Sometimes a peaceful read is just a peaceful read, but other times…
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20 days until Dreaming Spies! Other posts about writing and researching the book can be seen here, or you can read a long excerpt here.
You can pre-order a signed copy from Poisoned Pen Books or Bookshop Santa Cruz, and unsigned or e-books from Indiebooks, Amazon/Kindle, or Barnes & Noble/Nook.
My upcoming events are here.
