Now various factions are after the document including the French and Jago does not know who to trust. I was also surprised when I read the author's note at the end and saw that some parts of the plot were based on historical fact, although the details have been added to and embellished using the author's imagination! All the passengers seem to have a motive and I thought it was clever how we learn a little bit more about each of them throughout the investigation. Nattrass again and again had me wondering at her skill and marvellous turn of phrase in filtering complex eighteenth-century history in a way that resonates with our own times -- S. The new page-turning historical mystery from the author of BLACK DROP, a 2021 TIMES Book of the Year.

What follows seems to underline their fears, because soon a passenger is dead and the treaty has vanished. This presented plenty of opportunities for the kind of challenges present in historical ocean voyages, including threats from other ships and the weather. Leonora Nattrass very skilfully casts suspicion on first one character then another and it soon appears that almost everyone on the ship has a secret to hide. Apart from a few glimpses of Madeira and then Praia, capital of Cape Verde, the whole story unfolds aboard the Tankerville and we are given lots of insights into life during a long sea voyage.Nattrass has a real talent for transporting her readers to the 1790’s with pitch perfect prose infused with historical detail (never overdone), humour and intrigue. With President Eisenhower due to pay his first state visit, Rose, who had a hand in the assassination of “the Leader” a couple of years earlier and is surprised to be still at liberty, is tasked with meeting Queen Wallis for a background briefing.

In Nattrass’s second historical political thriller, it’s 1794 and Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago, previously seen in the excellent Black Drop, finds himself aboard a mail ship heading for Philadelphia. Set during a voyage from Britain to Philadelphia in 1975, we follow Mr Jago on a hunt to find the Treaty between the Brits and Americans that has gone missing aboard their ship. The narrative is shared between Laurence Jago’s reports and those of the ship’s captain, which are short, to the point but strangely revealing. With the story being set on board a three masted packet ship, in a ‘locked room’ murder mystery style, this story has a lot to offer the historical reader who won’t be disappointed. The plot suffers from a lack of breadth as do almost all books set in so limited a scene as a ship at sea, but Natrass did her best with it and the book was engaging enough, despite the abject failure of the attempt at plot-twist introduction.Among their number is Jago, of course, along with his dog Mr Gibbs; journalist William Philpott; Theodore Jay, son of American envoy John Jay; his slave and valet Peter Williams; and War Office official Frederick Jenkinson. Trapped on the ship with travellers including two penniless French aristocrats, an Irish actress and a dancing bear, he must hunt down both the lost treaty and a murderer before he has a tragic 'accident' himself. It’s an enjoyable historical account and good reading material while I was travelling on the US east coast, learning about the young republic and its founding fathers.