The Devil and the Dark Water - Stuart Turton ****

After reading Stuart Turton's third and first novels (in that order), I had to fill in the middle one. I have to admit up front that its setting on a seventeenth century ship appealed to me far less than the other two, but going on Turton's ability to produce remarkable mystery novels, it seemed a no-brainer and it didn't disappoint.

We rapidly follow the cast from the Dutch East India Company on board from Batavia (now Jakarta) on a journey to Amsterdam fraught with peril, both natural and apparently supernatural. The book is described as a historical locked room mystery - but that's just a smallish part of the plot, and the author emphasises this is fiction with a historical setting, not the kind of hist fic that aims to get every detail right.

Central characters include a pairing seemingly based on the classic fantasy combo that began with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - a huge mercenary and a diminutive magician, though here the smaller character is a detective, the unlikely named, Holmes-like Samuel Pipps. We do also get some strong female characters to balance the cast, though no one is entirely what they seem.

It remains my least favourite of the three. Even more so than Evelyn Hardcastle it's too long, and I did find the shipboard setting limiting. It was also frustrating that arguably the most interesting character in the book, Samuel Pipps (really?), was kept locked in a cell for the majority of the story. But despite this, it's still an enjoyable read with some entertaining twists along the way. The ending is outrageously unlikely, but certainly takes the reader by surprise.

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