About this item
Crime writer-sleuth Francis Meadowes finds himself embroiled in murder when he takes a job aboard a luxury cruise liner. Francis Meadowes has landed himself an enviable job lecturing on the history of crime writing aboard the Golden Adventurer as it cruises down the West African coast. His fellow passengers, including opinionated retired surgeon Klaus, mischievous elderly widow Eve, flamboyant designer Sebastian, beautiful American aid worker Sadie and her tedious but extremely wealthy aunt, are an eclectic group. But is any one of them capable of murder? When one of the guests is found dead in bed and a second disappears overboard, Francis finds himself drawn into a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears ...
About the Author
Mark McCrum began his career as a travel writer, with well-received books about Southern Africa ('Happy Sad Land') , Australia ('No Worries') and Ireland ('The Craic') . While continuing to write about travel for newspapers and magazines such as Conde Nast Traveller, he then turned to documenting two landmark British television series in '1900 House' and 'Castaway 2000', both of which books were top ten bestsellers in the UK. This led to his revealing account of pop star Robbie Williams on tour round Europe, 'Somebody Someday', which reached no.1 in the UK in both hardback and paperback.His next book was 'Going Dutch In Beijing', a lighthearted account of the differences in etiquette around the world, which was based on his wide experience of travel, and translated into eight languages. He then collaborated on a book about elusive words for common objects, 'The Thingummy' (released in the US as 'The Whatchamacallit') . His most recent non-fiction book is 'Walking With The Wounded', which tells the extraordinary story of four wounded Afghan veterans and their remarkable (and successful) attempt to reach the North Pole, accompanied for part of the way by Prince Harry, who contributes a foreword to the book.'As a ghost writer he has worked for a variety of clients, including victims of forced marriage ('Jack and Zena') , the TV explorer Bruce Parry ('Tribe') and global language expert Adam Jacot de Boinot ('The Meaning of Tingo') . In 2014, Mark started writing crime fiction. His debut was 'The Festival Murders', set at a typically rural English literary festival, which was 'Thriller of the Week' in the UK Daily Mail, as well as being selected by The Independent newspaper for its 'Not the Booker' summer reads longlist. He followed this with 'Cruising to Murder', which takes his detective Francis Meadowes well away from the UK on a luxury cruise along the coast of West Africa, with a denouement on a remote island in Guinea-Bissau. ('An intriguing, gentle mystery ... with the inevitable eclectic mix of characters - none of whom would be out of place in an Agatha Christie tale - it has a charm and wit that the mistress of crime herself might admire' - Daily Mail) . He has recently published the third in the series, 'Murder Your Darlings', set at a creative writing retreat in a beautiful villa in the hills of Tuscany. This was selected as a 'book of the year' by both the Mail on Sunday and the UK Literary Review and praised by Kirkus Review who described it as 'a neat twist on the classic English-country-house formula'.Mark is currently working on a fourth adventure for Francis ...More his website www.markmccrum.com
