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

Product Information

I guess I just wanted to know who the murderer was but guess what, it’s only been three weeks since I finished the book and I have already forgotten, lmao. When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye. I thought I would really enjoy this book, as the quote on the cover claims fans of Agatha Christie will like it. I really enjoyed this debut whodunit from Tom Hindle. I'm a fan of the genre, and this one had suspects a-plenty, lots of twists and intrigue and a clever wrap-up. The story brought two key characters in Birch, the ship's officer and Temple, the policeman who happened to be on the boat; don't ever believe in coincidences. Birch really had my heartstrings with his rather tragic past and depressed nature. I liked him a lot and felt him to be the intergrity compass of the piece. Temple seemed shady from the start with a slice of maybe he's okay.

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 Well you do like more noirish reads than me, so maybe you would find it more appealing. I’ve read one Conrad Allen book but I can’t remember the title. I am still looking for a copy of the QPQ title you mention.The rhythm of the opening and its structure reminded me of song ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ by Björk. It is a chilly November morning and one woman, and her child are braving the wet weather, after being confined in less than ideal third-class accommodation on the ship. Things are grey and drizzly, but to some degree quiet and peaceful, when suddenly the little boy’s screams punctuates the silence. Naturally it is he who finds the first body. So A Fatal Crossing is lightweight and unconvincing, but sometimes charming. The ship, the Endeavour, has 2,000 people on board, but when a death is discovered, it is assumed to be an accident – an elderly man falling down a steep gangway and hitting his head. But James Temple, one of the passengers, pushes himself forward, claiming to be a Scotland Yard detective and saying it is murder. Temple is fantastically rude and arrogant to everyone he meets, including people he wants favours from, and while I’ve met many very rude successful people, this just doesn’t ring true. The ship’s captain, Captain McCrory, is on his last voyage, and is sublimely uninterested in the fact that there might be a murderer on board, both when Temple beards him in his cabin, and later when evidence mounts – and indeed when there is more violence. His attitude, too, is a bit hard to fathom – most ship’s captains in fact and fiction are all powerful and very concerned to maintain their authority, take all decisions and lead everything that’s going on. McCrory doesn’t seem to care less, but he does allocate a junior officer, Timothy Birch, a misfit with a big personal problem which gradually becomes clearer and more important to the story, to keep an eye on Temple and work with him as far as possible. I’m limited in what I can say about this book without spoiling it because even comments on some of the techniques used would reveal too much. Let’s just say that I struggled to get into this at first and was afraid that it was too much of a “murder mystery template” but that it ultimately proved me wrong, to my delight. I particularly enjoyed how at the end I thought to myself “the ending would be cooler if this happened” and then, to some extent, it did - although the impact was even more so.

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. A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jonasson 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.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. I'm not going to lie, this book really was a slog to read, I found it too long and also the plot just didn't flow right. Recipes for Murder: 66 Dishes that Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie (2023) by Karen Pierce November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board .

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. Century is publishing A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle, adebutbilled as a "smart, twisting, Golden Age-style crime novel"set aboard a cruise liner. Thanks for the review, and I confess I’m trying to discern if this might be my cup of tea. The premise and the GA tropes suggest it would be, but the novel as a whole sounds more hard-boiled and modern in tone than I’d prefer. 🤔 Also, the following comment makes me wonder if the resolution veers away from the prior commitment to the mystery as puzzle: “ unfortunately when we do reach the concluding chapters of the novel, the plot sharply goes in another direction.” Would that be a fair inference? 🧐I have rated it 3 stars for several reasons, the first being that the characters are all unlikable. Birch is so utterly annoying with his constant ribbon playing that I nearly put the book down. Temple is also deeply unlikable, he’s constantly aggravated and highly strung and there isn’t one good quality about him. The rest of characters are bland and that’s being polite.