With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch's search for the culprit is fraught with danger. A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jónasson Tom Hindle writes this section well as I thought it was good that this initial discovery of the body contains humour, yet also the initial clues and questions that the reader might not want to consider. For example, he writes:

Literally the worst thing I have ever read. I only finished it because it was chosen by my book club. It felt like I was reading a year 11’s GCSE coursework for creative writing, the descriptions were so poor and repetitive. How many times can character’s nostrils flare? They were also so one dimensional. The ending was also disappointing and felt unfinished. I appreciated a few twists, but all felt rushed and put together at the end as if the author was deliberately leaving it unfinished to try and get a sequel out of it. The book is seton board the Endeavour, a cruise liner carrying passengers from Southampton to New York in the winter of 1924.When the body of a passenger is found on board the ship, Timothy Birch, an officer scarred by war and tragedy, and Scotland Yard inspector James Templework to solve the case, with 2,000 people on board and just days before they reach their destination. James Temple, the other key protagonist, was also a character I struggled to engage with, although for different reasons. Initially, I quite liked his combative verbal sparring with the ship’s captain, who is reluctant to let Temple investigate. Here’s is an excerpt of their interview: I had high hopes for this book. I’m a big Agatha Christie fan and I love settings where the suspects are maintained together such as on a ship like this one.Temple and Birch make an interesting partnership, particularly as it’s a very reluctant one! As an intelligent, competent and experienced detective, Temple is not at all happy about having an inept and bumbling ship’s officer shadowing his every move, saying the wrong things and interfering with the investigation. Birch is our narrator, and as we only see things from his point of view, Temple comes across as bad-tempered, rude and hostile, but there are hints that there’s more to each character than meets the eye. While Temple’s past and his reasons for boarding the Endeavour are shrouded in mystery, we learn that Birch is haunted by the disappearance of his young daughter Amelia and the breakdown of his marriage. I spent six months revisiting and refining the story that I’d originally come up with at school, with the end result being that only three of my original characters made it across from the play to the book. All the while, I was reading as many crime novels as I could lay my hands on.

A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jonasson Set almost 100 years ago ( 1924), A Fatal Crossing deftly combines a sense of its period setting with the plot structure and dramatic devices that readers expect a century later. I have rated it 3 stars for several reasons, the first being that the characters are all unlikable. Birch is so utterly annoying with his constant ribbon playing that I nearly put the book down. Temple is also deeply unlikable, he’s constantly aggravated and highly strung and there isn’t one good quality about him. The rest of characters are bland and that’s being polite. The whole story takes place over a four day period in November 1924 as the cruise liner Endeavour approaches New York from Southampton with two thousand passengers and crew on board. When an elderly man is found dead at the bottom of a staircase, the ship’s captain assumes – and hopes – that it’s an accident. However, James Temple, a Scotland Yard inspector, happens to be one of the passengers on the voyage and, after examining the body, he is convinced that the old man has been murdered. The captain gives Temple permission to investigate the crime, but only if he agrees to be accompanied by one of the ship’s officers, Timothy Birch. November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board .I didn’t finish the play, of course. For the simple, albeit slightly embarrassing reason that I’d hugely underestimated the amount of time it would take to write one. By the time I’d finished the first act, my friends and I had finished school and all moved on to university. I initially rated this three stars but I decided that a book that made me let out a groan [ frustrated, not sexual] loud enough to shake awake my co-workers at our late shift at the psych ward deserves two stars max. It’s November 1924, when the ship Endeavour sets sail from Southampton for New York, with a total of 2000 passengers and crew. Whatever happened, it’s a mystery that is supposed to keep readers guessing and hopefully continue reading which I did! I ate this up and I can’t even say why!! This may be a closed-circle mystery, but it wasn’t suspenseful even though they were all trapped on one ship. Birch and Temple spend their days interviewing other passengers, potential suspects and witnesses, going from one cabin to the next while the only thing Temple does is be angry and shout at people and Birch always calms everyone down.

SPOILER ALERT* the protagonist’s daughter has gone missing, which is an underlying theme within the story. For something which apparently drives the protagonist and is the reason for his journey, there is no information given on HOW she goes missing. It’s his fault? But HOW? He was on a ship when it happened - where was her mother?! It just makes no sense. So, you see, THAT plottwist alone is a good enough reason to read this book already. It's really good, you'll enjoy it. And again: take a look at that cover. Isn't it gorgeous? Century is publishing A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle, adebutbilled as a "smart, twisting, Golden Age-style crime novel"set aboard a cruise liner. There were some incredible twists to the plot, none more than the final twist. I would never have seen that coming and I really didn't sense any foreshadowing even on reflection. Raymond maybe had me wondering at something but I wasn't sure what. I really wanted to enjoy this book. I love Agatha Christie so a murder mystery set in the 1920’s sounded right up my street. Unfortunately I didn’t find myself particularly engaged in the story, or really caring about the outcome.If I’m being honest, I had no intention at first of writing a novel. The idea for A Fatal Crossing – that being a murder mystery set on board a 1920s cruise liner – first came to me while I was in sixth form, and the plan at that point was to write it up as a play which I’d put on with some friends. On the private island of Castello Fiore - surrounded by the glittering waters of Lake Garda - the illustrious Heywood family gathers for their son Laurence's wedding to Italian influencer Eva Bianchi.