One Bear's Opinion -- Book Review

Murder on the Salsette by Conrad Allen

In this sixth adventure with George Porter Dillman and Genevieve Masefield, we find them back on a P&O vessel, sailing from Bombay to Aden. As with re-reading the other books in this series, I find that while I remembered a couple of characters, I did not remember much of the plot at all, so it really became a case of re-discovering a favorite as I was turning the pages. It’s been fun to re-read the series and work out the mystery all over again. And I find I’m wrong some of the time, which is just the way it is when I read the books initially.

One of my housemates commented that the books that I read have a good deal of death in them. And that is true, but the deaths are usually handled “off-screen” and with very little graphic descriptions. I prefer cozy mysteries; maybe not Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, which are considered to the classics in the cozy genre, but I do prefer gentle mysteries. I read these types of mysteries and look at them as puzzles to be solved. As much as enjoying the novel, I like the puzzle aspect of solving the crime (not all the books I read feature murders as the crime, though most do).

Mystery readers have a bad public perception, as though we are all reading the books for research or we all like violence and gore. That’s not true at all. Any more than everyone who reads young adult fiction is less of an adult. People read for all kinds of reasons. I would bet that most mystery readers, especially most cozy mystery readers, are like me — reading because they enjoy solving the puzzle.

Murder on the Salsette does provide a good puzzle to solve; I was on the wrong path for a good bit of the book. I think that’s a good sign in a mystery author:  the ability to successfully mislead the reader. I am sure it play havoc with the editors who seem to want only important things to be left in the book. But maybe that’s what makes them good mystery editors, when they know which red herrings are worth keeping and which need to be thrown back.

As with the other books in the series, I found myself wishing there were deck plans of the ship, just because I want to know if my mental picture is close to being accurate — either in reality or in the author’s idea. I did look around the internet for deck plans of the ships used as settings in this series. I did find deck plans for the Lusitania, but I would really prefer to have them in the books for easier reference, and because some of the deck plans available online are for more modern ships bearing the same name as the ones in the books.

Overall it’s been enjoyable to re-read the series, and I will be a bit sad when we turn the last page in the eighth book. But it’s been great to spend time with good friends again. I’ll have to make sure it’s not another decade before I visit with them again.

One Bear’s Opinion: Four Glasses of Guava Juice and a plate of mini lemon tarts

Happy Reading Everyone,
Oliver