49243124._SY475_From Goodreads: “A murder on the high seas.
A remarkable detective duo.
A demon who may or may not exist.
It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.
But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.
And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.
Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?
With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board..“

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My Review

Wow what a fantastic book, and another brilliant buddy read with Yvo @ It’s all About Books. We’d actually agreed to read this one as soon as we’d finished buddy reading The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle a couple of years ago. And we’ve already agreed to do it again with his third book! 😀

Stuart Turton really does know how to build a very convincing world in which to set his extremely clever mysteries. This time he’s set it on a merchant ship sailing for Amsterdam from Indonesia. There were lots of characters with strange names that I had to pretend I knew how to pronounce. 😂  Fortunately it didn’t distract me from the story as I didn’t have to speak to anyone about them except my husband when I got excited about what was happening.

I really liked Arent the giant bodyguard of Sammy Pipps the great detective. I thought he was a great character who I rooted for the whole time. I also liked Sara and Lia the Governor’s wife and daughter. There were quite a few characters I wasn’t sure about, but I especially disliked the governor, but I think we weren’t supposed to like him anyway.

I really felt I was on the ship with the passengers and crew, sensing the danger of what was coming towards them, on board and out at sea! 😱 Me and Yvo chatted via Twitter  trying to work out what was going on, and who we suspected. Most of the time we didn’t have a clue, but we had lots of fun trying to work it out.

When the big reveals came it was thick and fast surprising us, although we had worked something out earlier, but not the reason why. 

This is definitely one of my favourite books this year and one I highly recommend if you enjoy clever mysteries.