“Murder on ‘B’ Deck” - Vincent Starrett



(Walter Ghost book 1)


🚢 This is a quick and fun cozy mystery set during the Roaring Twenties. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre; Starrett does justice to the time period too.


🚢 Dunston Mollock is an American novelist. My first impression is that he reminds me of Bertie Wooster. He’s a whimsical counterpart to our detective, Walter Ghost. Ghost has a dignified presence.


🚢 I love Starrett’s writing style. Ghost is a sometimes self-doubting amateur sleuth; despite his own reservations, his abilities are never doubted by others. Mollock is an entertaining sidekick. Miss Harrington and Mollock’s fledgling romance provides a fun side plot. Social norms and class conventions form interesting elements of the plot. Starrett captures the 1920s atmosphere aboard the transatlantic liner. A murder onboard has Ghost and the ship’s crew scrambling to solve it before the ship makes port and the killer vanishes into the crowds.


🚢 As much as the ambiance and characters were exceptional, the mystery was lacking in my opinion. Ghost cast his net wide and received much of the information he needed to identify the culprit. It didn’t seem like Ghost had to do much detective work. 


🚢 Some minor plot quibbles: I didn’t understand why the murderer held on to the only slightly damning evidence. The conclusion felt like it was tied up too easily. Lastly, the part about Osborne at the film screening suggested to me that Starrett wanted to do something with that thread and then forgot about it.


🚢 I enjoyed the writing style so much, that I’ll be picking up another Walter Ghost mystery in the future though the mystery itself didn’t have much bite to it. 


 

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