Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for the ARC of this book.

The first 90% of this book reads like a very standard and derivative Golden Age crime novel in the vein of Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, where a slightly hapless person follows a detective trying to solve a crime in a fixed location. In this case, an art dealer has been killed on board a transatlantic ship voyage from England to America in the 1920s and his murder is investigated by a policeman from Scotland Yard followed around by a ship’s officer.
Despite feeling derivative, it’s very readable, familiar and comfortable . The last 10% has a very modern twist, which I was not completely convinced by. It’s probably necessary in order for the book to not solely be Golden Age pastiche, but I found the ending a little frustrating because it does not completely resolve whether the actions which happen in the twist were effective in what the character involved was trying to achieve.
All in all, it’s an easy, fun read but doesn’t really have anything to raise it above any of the other 1920s murder mysteries out there.