Before there was Death on the Nile, there was murder on the Atlantic. Originally published in 1933, S.S. Murder by Q. Patrick--something of a catchall pseudonym for, in this case, Richard Wilson Webb and Mary Louise White--is a seafoam-sparkling epistolary shipboard murder mystery with a literal boatload of suspects.
New York journalist Mary Llewellyn is on board the Rio de Janeiro-bound S.S. Moderna, convalescing from a recent appendectomy. What starts as some time-killing journal writing, with entries addressed to her fiancé back in New York, becomes Mary's record of the sinister goings-on aboard the ship. The drama begins with the fatal poisoning of wealthy businessman Alfred Lambert during an alcohol-soaked game of bridge at which Mary is in attendance. So much for her "rest cure." Always hungry for a scoop, she's thrilled to be back on the beat.
With S.S. Murder, the American Mystery Classics series has exhumed another lost treasure from detective fiction's golden age. The puzzle's smart resolution caps off the book's superb premise: a ship at sea is a natural locked-room mystery setting, and the journal-writing conceit allows for Mary's jotted-down diagrams showing, significantly, where various suspects were positioned when Lambert fell dead. Another perk: while Mary may be pining for her fiancé, she has the funny-strident voice of the female lead in a screwball comedy of the novel's vintage. At one point she harrumphs, "Some men haven't got enough gumption to like a sensible sort of woman, even if she isn't any lingerie ad." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer