A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle
Oct. 30th, 2023 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
November 1924
The Endeavour sets sail with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board …
When a man’s body is found on deck, ship’s officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare the death a tragic accident. But Scotland Yard inspector James Temple is certain there’s more to this misfortune than meets the eye.
Mounting an investigation, the pair uncover the theft of a priceless painting and encounter a string of suspects with secrets to hide.
With just days remaining until the Endeavour reaches New York, their search for the culprit is fraught with danger.
And all the while, the passengers roam the ship with a killer in their midst …
It’s 12 November 1924.
Timothy Birch is a senior officer on the Endeavour, a luxury cruise liner travelling from Southampton to New York. He only returned to work 6 months ago after taking a year-long break following a family tragedy and despite the best efforts of his fellow officers, is withdrawn and isolated from them.
When an elderly passenger - an art dealer called Denis Dupont - is found dead at the foot of an exterior staircase linking the second and third class decks, everyone - including the ship’s captain Captain McCrory - assume it was an accident because there was heavy rain last night, making the staircase slippery. But there’s a Scotland Yard detective travelling on the ship - James Temple - who is convinced that Dupont was pushed.
Anxious to avoid upsetting his passengers - especially those in First Class - Captain McCrory reluctantly allows Temple to look into Dupont’s death and determine if there was foul play but only on the condition that he’s accompanied by Birch. Abrasive and secretive, Temple does not take well to having a babysitter and Birch finds it frustrating to deal with a man so rude and dismissive of his attempts to help. But as the pair retrace Dupont’s last known movements, they find themselves dealing with first class passengers who have links to each other and a missing painting that everyone is keen to find. With the ship getting closer to New York, Temple and Birch’s chance to uncover what really happened to Dupont and why is slipping away …
Tom Hindle’s debut historical crime novel is packed with red herrings, an emotional backstory for Birch and has a sucker punch twist at the end that genuinely left me surprised. Although this is very much a First Class passenger affair, I enjoyed the Agatha Christie vibe and the allusions to Birch’s war service but Temple is notably under-developed in comparison, which is a shame as fuller characterisation would have taken this to the next level.
I picked this up because I’d seen a number of people I follow on social media talking about how good it was and wanted to check it out.
Birch is an engaging main character who is haunted both by his experiences in World War I (and still bears an injury to his shoulder that causes him pain) and by the disappearance of his daughter Amelia over a year earlier. The slow reveal of his backstory works very well, as does the way Hindle shows how Birch now rebuffs the attempts of his fellow officers to befriend him, further isolating himself. There’s also a very real sense of sadness and desperate that permeates through the book and a lot of that comes from Birch who blames himself for the disappearance of his daughter and will do anything to find her so that he can repair his relationship with his wife as well and put his family back together. Hindle cleverly posits the investigation into Dupont’s as a kind of redemption opportunity for Birch because he’ll actually be able to find some answers for once and as a reader that did help me to become emotionally invested in him succeeding.
Initially, I enjoyed the antipathy between him and Temple who clearly resents being stuck with a babysitter and has no intention of involving Birch in his investigation and how while Birch initially has no interest in finding out what happened to Dupoint, slowly finds himself keen to uncover the mystery and even get some respect from Temple. The problem is that although there’s a slow reveal of why Temple is on the ship and why he is travelling to New York, he is not really developed in the same vein as Birch. This became a problem for me because Temple remains a fairly one note abrasive and rude character who never connects with Birch and remains fairly contemptuous of the First Class passengers he is questioning and I couldn’t help but feel that if Hindle had managed to give him a touch more warmth and connection with Birch then the twist that comes at the end would have had even more of a punch than it has. That’s not to say the twist doesn’t work - it does on a plot level - but I think it would have had an added emotional impact had that connection been there.
The investigation works well and has a Christie vibe to it as Birch and Temple question a group of First Class Passengers who were known to have spoken with Dupont shortly before his death. Again, the way that Hindle works in their respective back stories and the connections that they have with each other is well done and there are plenty of red herrings and false leads that kept me entertained and turning the pages.
All in all I thought this was a highly accomplished debut crime mystery with enough historical detail in it to feel authentic and it left me feeling very keen to read what Hindle writes next.
The Verdict:
Tom Hindle’s debut historical crime novel is packed with red herrings, an emotional backstory for Birch and has a sucker punch twist at the end that genuinely left me surprised. Although this is very much a First Class passenger affair, I enjoyed the Agatha Christie vibe and the allusions to Birch’s war service but Temple is notably under-developed in comparison, which is a shame as fuller characterisation would have taken this to the next level.
The Endeavour sets sail with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board …
When a man’s body is found on deck, ship’s officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare the death a tragic accident. But Scotland Yard inspector James Temple is certain there’s more to this misfortune than meets the eye.
Mounting an investigation, the pair uncover the theft of a priceless painting and encounter a string of suspects with secrets to hide.
With just days remaining until the Endeavour reaches New York, their search for the culprit is fraught with danger.
And all the while, the passengers roam the ship with a killer in their midst …
It’s 12 November 1924.
Timothy Birch is a senior officer on the Endeavour, a luxury cruise liner travelling from Southampton to New York. He only returned to work 6 months ago after taking a year-long break following a family tragedy and despite the best efforts of his fellow officers, is withdrawn and isolated from them.
When an elderly passenger - an art dealer called Denis Dupont - is found dead at the foot of an exterior staircase linking the second and third class decks, everyone - including the ship’s captain Captain McCrory - assume it was an accident because there was heavy rain last night, making the staircase slippery. But there’s a Scotland Yard detective travelling on the ship - James Temple - who is convinced that Dupont was pushed.
Anxious to avoid upsetting his passengers - especially those in First Class - Captain McCrory reluctantly allows Temple to look into Dupont’s death and determine if there was foul play but only on the condition that he’s accompanied by Birch. Abrasive and secretive, Temple does not take well to having a babysitter and Birch finds it frustrating to deal with a man so rude and dismissive of his attempts to help. But as the pair retrace Dupont’s last known movements, they find themselves dealing with first class passengers who have links to each other and a missing painting that everyone is keen to find. With the ship getting closer to New York, Temple and Birch’s chance to uncover what really happened to Dupont and why is slipping away …
Tom Hindle’s debut historical crime novel is packed with red herrings, an emotional backstory for Birch and has a sucker punch twist at the end that genuinely left me surprised. Although this is very much a First Class passenger affair, I enjoyed the Agatha Christie vibe and the allusions to Birch’s war service but Temple is notably under-developed in comparison, which is a shame as fuller characterisation would have taken this to the next level.
I picked this up because I’d seen a number of people I follow on social media talking about how good it was and wanted to check it out.
Birch is an engaging main character who is haunted both by his experiences in World War I (and still bears an injury to his shoulder that causes him pain) and by the disappearance of his daughter Amelia over a year earlier. The slow reveal of his backstory works very well, as does the way Hindle shows how Birch now rebuffs the attempts of his fellow officers to befriend him, further isolating himself. There’s also a very real sense of sadness and desperate that permeates through the book and a lot of that comes from Birch who blames himself for the disappearance of his daughter and will do anything to find her so that he can repair his relationship with his wife as well and put his family back together. Hindle cleverly posits the investigation into Dupont’s as a kind of redemption opportunity for Birch because he’ll actually be able to find some answers for once and as a reader that did help me to become emotionally invested in him succeeding.
Initially, I enjoyed the antipathy between him and Temple who clearly resents being stuck with a babysitter and has no intention of involving Birch in his investigation and how while Birch initially has no interest in finding out what happened to Dupoint, slowly finds himself keen to uncover the mystery and even get some respect from Temple. The problem is that although there’s a slow reveal of why Temple is on the ship and why he is travelling to New York, he is not really developed in the same vein as Birch. This became a problem for me because Temple remains a fairly one note abrasive and rude character who never connects with Birch and remains fairly contemptuous of the First Class passengers he is questioning and I couldn’t help but feel that if Hindle had managed to give him a touch more warmth and connection with Birch then the twist that comes at the end would have had even more of a punch than it has. That’s not to say the twist doesn’t work - it does on a plot level - but I think it would have had an added emotional impact had that connection been there.
The investigation works well and has a Christie vibe to it as Birch and Temple question a group of First Class Passengers who were known to have spoken with Dupont shortly before his death. Again, the way that Hindle works in their respective back stories and the connections that they have with each other is well done and there are plenty of red herrings and false leads that kept me entertained and turning the pages.
All in all I thought this was a highly accomplished debut crime mystery with enough historical detail in it to feel authentic and it left me feeling very keen to read what Hindle writes next.
The Verdict:
Tom Hindle’s debut historical crime novel is packed with red herrings, an emotional backstory for Birch and has a sucker punch twist at the end that genuinely left me surprised. Although this is very much a First Class passenger affair, I enjoyed the Agatha Christie vibe and the allusions to Birch’s war service but Temple is notably under-developed in comparison, which is a shame as fuller characterisation would have taken this to the next level.
