Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Dangerous Sea by David Roberts

Dangerous Sea by David Roberts (Carroll & Graf, 2003) is the fourth book in the historical mystery series featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. Lord Corinth is the second son of a duke and Verity is a committed Communist and journalist for left-wing publications. Set amid the political mayhem of the 1930s, this book highlights the growing but unacknowledged attraction of the two, who recognize their very different philosophies of life can only doom the budding relationship. That doesn’t stop them from embarking on adventures together: the two recently returned from retrieving Corinth’s teenage nephew who ran away from school to fight in the Spanish Civil War at Verity’s unwitting instigation.

In the first pages of this book Corinth is approached by someone well-placed in the British government to accompany an eminent economist on a trip to the United States, where the economist will take part publicly in conferences and privately plead with the President for his financial assistance to England in the war everyone sees coming. Security officials believe the economist is in danger from German agents who are aware of his mission, so Corinth enlists Verity and his nephew, who is refusing to return to school, to assist in seeing that the economist is never alone. Everyone is excited about a trip to the United States aboard the great ship Queen Mary, including avowed Communist Verity, who has pangs of guilt about traveling in First Class luxury. Within a day of embarkation the body of the guard assigned officially to protect the economist is found, obviously murdered, and the search for the killer begins.

While an ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic has little in common with a country manor house full of snowed-in guests, the two are quite similar when a murder occurs. The assassin perforce is unable to leave and there is a finite pool of potential candidates from which to pull the culprit. The story makes the most of the diverse personalities onboard but the guard’s killer was more or less obvious early on. The motive was the only element not immediately apparent. The weak mystery in no way affects the story, which has compelling characters, interesting subplots, and an authoritative description of life on a passenger cruise ship.

I understand that in some quarters this will be viewed as heresy; however, Lord Corinth and Verity Browne remind me strongly of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. In all the attempts I’ve seen at emulating that iconic couple, this pair comes closest. This series has been on my TBR list for a long time, and I am sorry I waited so long to tackle a title in it. I definitely will be looking for the rest of the books, ten in all, to see how well they live up to this one.

·         Hardcover: 320 pages

·         Publisher: Carroll & Graf; 1st Carroll & Graf Ed edition (October 16, 2003)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0786712155

·         ISBN-13: 978-0786712151

 Aubrey Hamilton © 2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.