Cruising to Murder

August 13, 2018
In McCrum’s entertaining sequel to The Festival Murders, B-list crime writer Francis Meadowes agrees to lecture on the history of crime writing in exchange for a free 10-day excursion on the Golden Adventurer, a cruise ship visiting ports along the west coast of Africa. The first evening, he meets his fellow passengers, most of whom are retired and have the wherewithal to pay $20,000 to be spoon-fed “adventure travel.” The following morning, a dear old widow with whom Francis dined is found dead. Did she die of natural causes or was she murdered? Francis is summoned to lend his expertise to the investigation. Shortly thereafter, a passenger goes overboard—was it suicide or was she pushed? Francis realizes that he might very well be stuck on board with a murderer who has killed twice and will most likely kill again. Amid the riotous abundance of local color and exuberant characters, McCrum provides a fair-play mystery: all the clues to means, motive, and opportunity are hidden in plain sight for the eager reader to put together. Agent: Jamie Maclean, Coombs Moylett Maclean (U.K.).

August 15, 2018
A crime writer confronts the real deal on a cruise ship headed up the coast of West Africa.Passengers have so many reasons to love the Goldencruise line. The ships are small, allowing guests to form friendships quickly. The destinations are exotic: not the boring paddles around the Mediterranean beloved of cruise novices but excursions to hidden gems like Uluru and the Falkland Islands. And the staff members, from the expedition guides to the butlers, are uniformly accommodating and efficient. First-timer Francis Meadowes counts himself lucky. In return for a single lecture on the history of British crime fiction, he's earned a free junket from Cape Town to Dakar aboard the Golden Adventurer, with day trips to Lomé, Takoradi, and the Bijagos Archipelago. Of course, when the inevitable corpses start turning up, Francis' trip seems less of a bargain, especially since the captain, reluctant to have the local police clomping through the Panorama Lounge, decides that a quiet, circumspect crime writer would be the ideal person to investigate. But since he did have some luck solving the murders at the Mold-on-Wold literary festival (The Festival Murders, 2018), Francis agrees to give it a go, especially given an added incentive: The captain has assigned comely expedition guide Carmen to assist him. But can the amateur sleuth wrap up the case of the corpse-laden cruise before his is the next body in the Adventurer's increasingly packed morgue?A mundane mystery, typical shipboard hijinks, and a splash of local color vie for the reader's attention in the second outing for McCrum's crime-solving crime writer.

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