The heart, style, and intended readership of J.S. Borthwick's latest mystery romp involving Sarah Deane--a teaching fellow and doctoral candidate at Bowmouth College in Maine--and her physician husband, Alex McKenzie, is crystallized with this little exchange: "I think," said Julia, standing up and gathering her handbag to her breast, "that we can give Deedee and Richard a miss. Who in God's name wants to hear all the ghastly details about people being chopped up with cutlasses and clinging to rafts?"

Alex smiled down at Julia. "You'd rather read Dick Francis describing maimed horses and mutilated jockeys? Or," he added with a side glance at Sarah, who was a fan of Brother Cadfael and his felonious associates in 13th-century Shrewsbury, "entertain yourself with poisoned yeomen and decapitated monks?" Sarah and Alex are sailing home from Europe with Sarah's elderly but feisty Aunt Julia, and the supposed subject of their conversation is whether to attend a shipboard lecture on pirates. But what Borthwick is really doing is placing her readers in familiar territory--that comfortable country where Dick Francis and Ellis Peters meet Agatha Christie for tea.

In this country, anyone who gets on board a brand new ocean liner (in this case, the Queen Victoria) knows that the shipboard activities will include murder, as well as shuffleboard, and that Sarah and Alex will clear things up long before the ship docks in New York. One reader's déjà vu is another's homage, and Borthwick writes with verve and grace--as witnessed by the popularity of past titles such as The Bridled Groom, The Case of the Hook-Billed Kites, Dolly Is Dead, The Down East Murders, Dude on Arrival, The Garden Plot, and The Student Body. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
Sarah Deane, teaching fellow at a Maine college, and her husband, Alex, an internist (both last seen in The Garden Plot), are in unfamiliar waters?literally?when they escort Sarah's feisty aunt Julia, 70, back to the States on the maiden voyage of the British liner Queen Victoria. This cheeky mystery wastes no time in setting up a convoluted plot that puts the naturally paranoid Sarah on full alert. A member of the British Trade Commission is hit by an automobile and killed just before boarding. Another member dies in his cabin from a seemingly accidental fall. Sarah takes it upon herself to protect a third member, a youthful drunk and wastrel, with his free-wheeling girlfriend, Liza, assisting. Circling around Sarah and the equally suspicious Aunt Julia are several sinister shipmates, none of whom is quite what he or she seems. What about the frenetic duo lecturing on "Ships in Peril"? Is the object of Aunt Julia's shipboard romance a clever con man? How about the chaplain's sneaky assistant? And what is the ship's murky connection to the Titanic? By relentlessly prying and eavesdropping, Julia gets a handle on the situation?and puts herself and Aunt Julia in grave danger. Always witty, sometimes farcical, full of wonderfully arcane allusions to old movies, this novel succeeds as a tightly controlled and unflagging thriller. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Series star/amateur sleuth (The Garden Plot, LJ 3/1/97) Sara Deane and her husband board a fabulous British luxury liner for its maiden voyage, but not without portents. When traffic claims a trade-commission member outside his hotel and another dies unexpectedly in his stateroom, Sara suspects a plot. More engaging work from a proven author.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
"[A] cheeky mystery...Always witty, sometimes farcical, full of wonderfully arcane allusions to old movies, this novel succeeds as a tightly controlled and unflagging thriller."--Publishers Weekly

"Engaging work from a proven author."--Library Journal

"Borthwick just gets better and better."--Rockland (ME) Courier-Gazette



Book Description
New England English teacher Sarah Deane, with husband Alex and feisty Aunt Julia in tow, is getting ready to board the Queen Victoria for a luxurious transatlantic cruise. But before they even set sail, two passengers are killed-- both members of the British-American trade commission. Now Sarah must wade through a sea of peculiar passengers and quirky crew members to find a killer aboard Vicky-- and drop anchor on the seafaring scoundrel...



About the Author
With her signature blend of wit, whimsy, and intrigue, acclaimed author J. S. Borthwick presents her ninth delightful Sarah Deane mystery-- a clever, crackling novel that once again proves to be "more fun than a barrel of clams at high tide."

J. S. Borthwick lives with her family on the Maine coast, where many of her mysteries are set.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Queen Victoria, Britain's fabulously extravagant new ocean liner, is making her maiden voyage from England to New York. Sarah Deane, English teacher-cum-amateur sleuth, her husband, Dr. Alex McKenzie, and Sarah's feisty aunt, Julia, are looking forward to the calming sea and salt air. But not all the passengers are lucky enough to make it aboard: A senior member of the British-American trade commission is run down outside of his hotel room just hours before the Vicky leaves Southampton. Then another member mysteriously turns up dead in his stateroom. Are the deaths coincidental accidents or are sinister plots afloat? Sarah's sleuthing proceeds full speed ahead as she sizes up a throng of eccentric passengers and quirky crew members. But the appearance of a strange nighttime intruder in Sarah and Alex's cabin raises the question: Is Sarah in too deep or can she catch a killer before it's too late?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Sarah Deane, teaching fellow at a Maine college, and her husband, Alex, an internist (both last seen in The Garden Plot), are in unfamiliar waters--literally--when they escort Sarah's feisty aunt Julia, 70, back to the States on the maiden voyage of the British liner Queen Victoria. This cheeky mystery wastes no time in setting up a convoluted plot that puts the naturally paranoid Sarah on full alert. A member of the British Trade Commission is hit by an automobile and killed just before boarding. Another member dies in his cabin from a seemingly accidental fall. Sarah takes it upon herself to protect a third member, a youthful drunk and wastrel, with his free-wheeling girlfriend, Liza, assisting. Circling around Sarah and the equally suspicious Aunt Julia are several sinister shipmates, none of whom is quite what he or she seems. What about the frenetic duo lecturing on "Ships in Peril"? Is the object of Aunt Julia's shipboard romance a clever con man? How about the chaplain's sneaky assistant? And what is the ship's murky connection to the Titanic? By relentlessly prying and eavesdropping, Julia gets a handle on the situation--and puts herself and Aunt Julia in grave danger. Always witty, sometimes farcical, full of wonderfully arcane allusions to old movies, this novel succeeds as a tightly controlled and unflagging thriller. (Feb.)

Library Journal

Series star/amateur sleuth (The Garden Plot, LJ 3/1/97) Sara Deane and her husband board a fabulous British luxury liner for its maiden voyage, but not without portents. When traffic claims a trade-commission member outside his hotel and another dies unexpectedly in his stateroom, Sara suspects a plot. More engaging work from a proven author.

Kirkus Reviews

Welcome to the maiden voyage of Her Majesty's ship Queen Victoria, a luxury liner that aims to re-create the golden age of transatlantic crossings, right down to the ebulliently retro criminal plotting. Sozzled junior trade commissioner Teddy Hogarth's colleague and minder Donald Lyman-Smith has already been dispatched by a convenient accident before boarding; Sarah Deane's horsey aunt Julia Clancy (The Garden Plot, 1997, etc.) is nearly killed only hours after Vicky leaves Southampton; and Brigadier General Keith Fletcher Gordon is next in line. Whodunit? The ship is crawling with brightly vacuous suspects who seem, like the Flying Dutchman, to have been crossing back and forth ever since the heyday of Agatha Christie. There's Teddy's lust object Liza Baum, ancient retired naval officer Aubrey Clyde Smith, matey horse-fancier Erik Anderson, maritime-disaster lecturer Richard Herrick and his wife Deedee, and their sempiternally seasick manager Gerald Hofstra. In between homicides, there'll be time for Sarah to get locked in a closet, several characters to switch staterooms in preparation for things that go bump in the night, and a series of increasingly improbable theories about what's going on. A pogrom against members of Teddy's trade commission? A reenactment of the Titanic calamity with real corpses? A convention of frauds masquerading as people named Smith?