April 2017 Debut of the Month.
All aboard for an Agatha Christie-esque mystery set on a ship bound for the distant shores of Australia in 1939.
As the world teeters on the edge of another war, working class Lily is about to plunge headlong into a new life. She’s leaving her family and her little room in Hammersmith to work in domestic service in Australia. While she’s on a lowly assisted-passage scheme, once aboard the ship she “feels like a person of substance”, enjoying cocktail parties in the company of flirtatious Edward Fletcher and the decadent Campbells as they stop off at the likes of Pompeii, the Pyramids and Colombo. But, as Lily’s Jewish friend Maria remarks, “on a boat like this everyone is running away from something”, and that certainly turns out to be true when a succession of misdemeanors strike; an assault, a disappearance, and then murder.
All in all, this is a scrumptiously entertaining, read-in-one-sitting mystery that fizzes with glamour, romance and intrigue and the sting of an unexpected twist, while also exploring sexual, racial and class prejudices. ~ Joanne Owen
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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It was a first class deception that would change her life forever. 1939, Europe on the brink of war. Lily Shepherd leaves England on an ocean liner for Australia, escaping her life of drudgery for new horizons. She is instantly seduced by the world onboard: cocktails, black-tie balls and beautiful sunsets. Suddenly, Lily finds herself mingling with people who would otherwise never give her the time of day. But soon she realizes her glamorous new friends are not what they seem. The rich and hedonistic Max and Eliza Campbell, mysterious and flirtatious Edward, and fascist George are all running away from tragedy and scandal even greater than her own. By the time the ship docks, two passengers are dead, war has been declared, and life will never be the same again.
A Dangerous Crossing features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Crime and Mystery, Debut Books of the Month, Historical romance, Fiction, Recommendations, Romance / Relationship Stories
A Dangerous Crossing is available in Hardback
A Dangerous Crossing was written by Rachel Rhys and published by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd
A Dangerous Crossing has 366 pages
