Book Review: Grave Passage by William Doonan

This is a review of the Kindle version.

Henry Grave has had an interesting life, having been a POW, ran for Congress in 1972, authored a book in archeology and an International dancing champion in Tango. Now 84 years old, he works for the Association of Cruising Vessel Operators in Washington D.C. and investigates crimes on ships.

The ship under question in one Contessa Voyager, an ultramodern cruise ship. Robert Samson, a retired FBI profiler is a regular on the lecture circuit. Samson was about to reveal the identity of the perpetrator of an unsolved murder at Cape Cod, when he was murdered.

Contessa has 1532 passengers on-board and 640 crewmembers. Henry has a long list of suspects:

• Hugh Arlen, Chief Security Officer
• Captain Egil Erlander, Ship Captain
• Helen Ettinger, 70 years old passenger who takes a keen interest in Henry Grave
• Duarte, a Venezuelan General evading deportment
• Elliott Powell and Doug Baxter, Veterinarians and their wives - Donna and Opal respectively
• Ron Gibson, Cruise director
• Inga Hess, Entertainer
• Shelley Tobin, actress and her husband /lead writer, Jack
• Vasily Orlov, cosmonaut
• Hector, a young security officer

William Doonan, the author

William Doonan has crafted a nice debut for Henry Grave. The mystery element is OK. What impressed me the most was Doonan’s writing style.

Click on the link to buy the book:

Here are the things I liked best about the book:

• Nice description of life on a cruise ship voyage
• Good humor all around, with some particularly funny exchanges
• Grave’s philosophical reflections on life, food etc.
• Good description of cruise ship amenities, eager-to-help crewmembers with name tags & how they get tipped for their services etc.

For all the good points mentioned above, I felt there were a few missteps. There are a couple of racial stereotypes (physical description of Asians and the weak English spoken by a particular Russian character) that stuck out like a sore thumb in what was otherwise a very enjoyable read.

Recommended to fans of the mystery genre.

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Image Sources: Amazon

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