A Fatal Crossing (by Tom Hindle)

The downside of the library system (and it is a very tiny downside compared to all the many upsides) is that I can check out some books over and over again, not have time to read them, and by the time they pop up, I forgot who told me about them or why I was interested in the first place.  I've been trying to clear out my queue by reading (or at least starting and DNFing) books that I've accidentally checked out or delayed repeatedly. I'm running out of holds and virtual shelf space!

Anyway, this is another Agatha Christie homage, with a murder set on a gilded age, Titanic-like passenger ship. I thought the plot was well constructed, but the characters are not as vividly rendered as those in a Christie novel, so some of them blended together and I sometimes got confused about who was who. The narrator is the ship's officer sidekick to the main detective, who quite frankly was unpleasant to read about as he was kind of a dick. The book is also fairly long and a bit repetitive at times.

There is a Christie-like twist at the end that's well-executed but I'm still not fully sure how I feel about it.  I need to talk about it in full spoilery fashion, so if you read this, let me know!