The Widow's Cruise (1959)
Blurb:
My review:
The Widow's Cruise, with its sparkling humour, witty dialogue, amusing characters and sense of ease, is a throwback to the more light-hearted and humorous detective stories of the 1930s. It is a distinct pleasure to come across a relaxed and angstless Nigel Strangeways and his sculptress mistress Clare Massinger on a Greek cruise. Cruise-ships always provide the best closed circle, because of the increased mobility afforded by the size of the vessel and the number of sites that can be visited. In this case, following an excursion to Kalymnos, Ianthe Ambrose, a horrible frump, is thrownoverboard within a few minutes of the murder of Primrose Chalmers, the obnoxious daughter of a pair of lay-analysts. The suspects are vivid and colourful, and there is plenty of skulduggery aboard the T.S.S. Menelaos to add to the mystification. The detection is at its best: as well as drawing up convicing dummy cases against the suspects in the best tradition, Blake lulls the reader into a false sense of security, into feeling that the solution is obvious—and then springs a particularly subtle surprise, relying on an ingenious use of impersonation. Although we have seen this solution before in Blake's books, iti s handled in as fine a manner as it was twenty-odd years ago. While some critics claim that Blake stole the plot from Christianna Brand's Tour de Force (1955), she reworked Blake's original novel, which has its roots in a short story in Christie's classic The Thirteen Problems (1932). The clues are subtly placed; yet, in retrospect, as obvious as they should be.