To Davy Jones Below
Daisy Dalrymple Mystery, No 6

by Carola Dunn

    Wedding bells peal out, and Daisy is the Honorable Miss Dalrymple no more, but Mrs. Fletcher. But scarcely is the honeymoon over, when the pair has to voyage across the ocean to America, where Alec is going to advise J Edgar Hoover about running a police force. They are not alone, for Caleb P Arbuckle is there, together with his daughter Gloria and her husband Philip (see Damsel in Distress, also reviewed on this site), and with them millionaire Jethro Gotobed. Daisy and Alec like the bluff Yorkshireman, but not his new wife, ex-chorus girl Wanda Fairchild. Before they have been at sea long they have storms to cope with, and why do people keep falling overboard?

I, too, went overboard for this highly readable ninth addition to this delightful series. A large ocean liner is always a great setting for a story (so many plot possibilities) and Ms Dunn uses it expertly. As well as the mystery itself, the reader is treated to a description of what it must have been like on such a voyage, what people did, a glimpse into how the ship was run and what the staterooms looked like. This shows a keen awareness of why people read historical fiction as well as a sound underpinning of period knowledge, one of the best things about this series. May it run and run...

Reviews of other titles in this series

Death at Wentwater Court, 1
The Winter Garden Mystery, 2
Requiem For A Mezzo, 3
Murder on the Flying Scotsman, 4
Damsel in Distress, 5
Dead In The Water, 6
Styx and Stones, 7
Rattle His Bones, 8 [review 1] [review 2]
To Davy Jones Below, 9
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, 10
Mistletoe and Murder, 11
Die Laughing, 12
A Mourning Wedding, 13
Fall of a Philanderer, 14
Gunpowder Plot, 15
The Black Ship, 17
Sheer Folly, 18
Anthem For Doomed Youth, 19
Gone West, 20