Although I frequently have read (and have made lists, too) of books with seaside settings, I'm not sure if I have ever come up with a list of reads set on board ships. I plan on starting Rachel Rhys's Dangerous Crossing, which I recently mentioned. It made me think of all the novels with that setting, of which there have been a fair few. Always a listmaker, I wondered if I could come up with at least thirteen.
Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys -- "England, September 1939 Lily Shepherd boards a cruise liner for a new life in Australia and is plunged into a world of cocktails, jazz and glamorous friends. But as the sun beats down, poisonous secrets begin to surface. Suddenly Lily finds herself trapped with nowhere to go ... Australia, six-weeks later The world is at war, the cruise liner docks, and a beautiful young woman is escorted onto dry land in handcuffs. What has she done?" The blurb calls this a cross between Patricia Highsmith and Daphne du Maurier!
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware -- Which I have had for far too long unread on my TBR pile. "With surprising twists, spine-tingling turns, and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense read in The Woman in Cabin 10—one that will leave even the most sure-footed reader restlessly uneasy long after the last page is turned."
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie -- I've read this one! "The tranquility of a cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish, and beautiful. A girl who had everything . . . until she lost her life."
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje -- "By turns poignant and electrifying, The Cat’s Table is a spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage."
What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte -- I have wanted to read this one ever since it came out (and now is handily in paperback). "In 1928, aboard the Cap Polonio—a lavish transatlantic cruise ship bound for Buenos Aires—Max Costa locks eyes with Mecha Inzunza across the first-class ballroom. They are an unlikely match. He is a thief, sleek and refined, hired to dance with unaccompanied passengers. She is the elegant wife of an accomplished composer, accustomed only to luxury. But as they embrace in a fiery tango, a steamy and dangerous love affair ignites—following them from the ship’s gentle sways in the Atlantic night to the seedy decadence of Buenos Aires. Yet as quickly as their affair begins, the two lovers are torn apart . . ." I don't (yet) own this, but I am sure I will eventually. The more I think about Perez-Reverte (I have read several of his books but it has been ages and ages) the more I want to read something by him (now-ish).
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald -- "On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of the slightly disreputable, the temporarily lost, and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the great river’s tides. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they cling to one another in a motley yet kindly society."
The Bar on the Seine by Georges Simenon -- Okay this one is only peripherally related to books set on boats. In this case the murder takes place near a canal, but it has that atmosphere. I read it a number of years ago and it has stayed with me. " In The Bar on the Seine, Maigret must visit a prisoner he arrested and bear the news that his reprieve has been refused and he will be executed at dawn. But when the condemned man tells Maigret a story, his investigations lead him to the Guinguette a Deux Sous, a bar by the River Seine, and into the seamy underside of bourgeois Parisian life." Gah, now I want to read some Simenon books.
Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes -- "Genevieve has finally achieved her dream: to leave the stress of London behind and start a new life aboard a houseboat in Kent. She’s found the perfect vessel: Revenge of the Tide. She already feels less lonely; as if the boat is looking after her. But the night of her boat-warming party, a body washes up, and to Genevieve’s horror, she recognizes the victim. She isn’t about to tell the police, though; hardly anyone knows about her past as a dancer at a private members’ club, The Barclay. The death can’t have anything to do with her. Or so she thinks... I liked this one when I read it, too.
River of Shadows by Valerio Varesi -- I discovered Varesi, an Italian crime writer, a number of years ago. I really liked this first Commissario Soneri novel but then let my attention lapse and so never looked for another book (I'm not sure he was ever published in the US but UK editions are easily to be had). "Rain falls relentlessly on the Po valley in northern Italy, and the river is swollen to its limits. A huge barge leaves its moorings, steering an erratic course downstream and away into the foggy night. When finally it runs aground hours later, the bargeman is nowhere to be found. That same evening, Commissario Soneri is summoned to investigate the apparent suicide of a man in nearby Parma. He and the bargeman were brothers, and when the detective discovers that they served together in the fascist militia fifty years earlier, the incidents seem likely to be linked."
Death on a Galician Shore by Domingo Villar -- And another wonderful translated (from Spanish this time) crime novel, and ditto--meant to get back this books, too. I really liked this second DI Leo Caldas story, but it looks like he only wrote two and then no more. "One misty autumn dawn in a quiet fishing port in northwest Spain, the body of a sailor washes up in the harbour. Detective Inspector Leo Caldas is called in from police headquarters in the nearby city of Vigo to sign off on what appears to be a suicide. But details soon come to light that turn this routine matter into a complex murder investigation."
Learning to Swim by Clare Chambers -- One of my very, very favorite books ever. It is a charming romantic story that I have read numerous times. It really only has a very few scenes on a houseboat, but I am counting it since they are memorable ones!
To Davy Jones Below by Carola Dunn -- This is actually the next book up for me in the Daisy Dalrymple series of mysteries, and I really should get back to them soon--easy, comforting sorts of reads that are always welcome. "In 1926, newlyweds Daisy Dalrymple and Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher honeymoon on an ocean voyage to America, accompanied by Daisy's childhood friend, his wife, and his millionaire father-in-law. They are joined by an English millionaire and his new showgirl wife. All look forward to a pleasant trip. But soon the ocean liner is beset by a series of suspicious accidents and deaths. With rough seas putting many out of commission due to seasickness-- "
The Maiden's Trip: A Wartime Adventure on the Grand Union Canal by Emma Smith -- "In 1943 Emma Smith joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters. She set out with two friends on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-olds, freed from a middle-class background, precipitated into the boating fraternity. They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats, how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham and coal from Coventry; how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water, keep the engine ticking over and steer through tunnels. They live off kedgeree and fried bread and jam, adopt a kitten, lose their bicycles, laugh and quarrel and get progressively dirtier and tougher as the weeks go by." I read her memoir Great Western Beach and really must get to this one, too.
That was fun. Do you have any good books set on boat suggestions. Just out of curiosity, of course.