New Sea View, Partially Obstructed, book five of the Gilded Wren Mysteries — on Kindle, and in Kindle Unlimited. Read it on Amazon →
Jude Grove

The Gilded Wren Mysteries

Short, funny cruise-ship mysteries

Five stars. Allegedly.

One failing cruise ship. One complete case per book.

Cover of Murder Is Not Included, book one of the Gilded Wren Mysteries.
Start with book one See all books

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A short, complete case — one Caribbean voyage, one sitting.

The books

Five out now, in order

Every book is a complete mystery and re-introduces the ship from scratch, so any of them works on its own. Read them in order and you will notice something else going on underneath.

Cover of Murder Is Not Included: a rope tied across a gap in a ship’s railing, with a tortoiseshell cat asleep beside it.

Start here

Book one

Murder Is Not Included

A travel journalist dies in the spa that does not exist. Peggy has four days, no forensics, and a door log that says she did it.

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Cover of Wedding Package Sold Separately: a ship's deck set for a wedding, with an empty arch, empty white chairs and a cake, one orange running shoe lying in the aisle, and a tortoiseshell cat sitting with her back to us, looking at it.

Coming soon

Book two

Wedding Package Sold Separately

The ship's first wedding at sea is on Friday. On Wednesday the bride's son is not in his cabin, and the groom's glasses turn up beside his phone on a closed deck.

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Cover of Formal Night, Fatal Morning: an empty raked theatre floor with a single follow-spot on it, and a tortoiseshell cat sitting where the front row used to be.

Book three

Formal Night, Fatal Morning

The theatre seats were sold to a cinema in Panama. The room goes dark for eleven minutes, and in the morning a man is found at the bottom of it.

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Cover of Some Restrictions Apply: an advertising panel showing a bright blue pool with loungers, standing in front of the drained and cracked pool it depicts, with a tortoiseshell cat sitting between them.

Book four

Some Restrictions Apply

The ship has stopped dead in calm water and everyone is having a lovely day. Then Mr Halloran’s radio goes missing, and nobody can leave.

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Cover of Sea View, Partially Obstructed: a cabin window boarded over with planks, a small vase of flowers on the sill, and a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the table looking at it.

New

Book five

Sea View, Partially Obstructed

Thirty-nine sea-view cabins now look at plywood. A former shipyard painter is found under a fallen partition, and four screws are missing.

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Coming aboard later

One more to come — the sixth and last: what is left of her, and the man who signed her off as finished. See the full running order →

I write comic mysteries in which nobody knows they are in a comedy.

Everyone is sincere. Everyone is doing their job. The situation is absurd.

Welcome aboard

What you are getting on for

  • Peggy Nunn is Director of Guest Delight. Unfortunately, somebody also typed her name into the Purser box — and under Kastrovian law the entry, not the appointment, constitutes the office.
  • The ship is a good deal less than the brochure. The marble is laminate. The spa is a room with a sign. Nobody aboard says so out loud, which is where the comedy comes from.
  • Every book is one complete mystery — one Caribbean voyage, crime to solution, and short enough to finish in a sitting.
  • The same crew sail all six. The murders change; Vesna, Jonty, Dario, Panno and the rest do not. The sea is lovely and the holiday is never sad.

The world

She has had three names and none of them were hers

A North Sea ferry, then a Gulf casino boat with the corridors renumbered and the wiring left where it was, then eight years at anchor. Now she is the Gilded Wren, and there are six hundred and twelve people aboard who paid for a palace. There is also Article 9, a landlocked shipping registry, and a currency nobody can identify.

  • Vesna Radić, Second Engineer. Carries a bucket. The ship goes into it, one fitting at a time.
  • Jonty Fisk, Entertainments Director. Prints all seven days of the programme before sailing, because it is cheaper by the run.
  • Dario Bassani, Executive Chef. Four hundred covers, one oven, fourteen written requests for a second.
  • Captain Emil Panno. Would rather not, and says so exactly once per book.
  • Bo. Sleeps in the one deck chair on the ship that is structurally sound.
Explore the ship

Not ready to board yet?

The Gilded Wren passenger handbook

The Bellamy Line's official handbook for the ship — every amenity, every deck, every promise — annotated throughout in the Purser's own hand with what each of them actually is. Free, and yours to keep.

One email when there's a new book, and nothing else. No forwarding, no selling, unsubscribe in one click. How your address is handled.

Your ship · Deck 11 · Sun Deck

Two pools. Loungers. The Wren's shuffleboard court, regulation length, restored to its original specification.

Towels are provided at the towel station from 7am, for your comfort.

One pool. The other has a cover on it and the cover is not coming off this season. The programme calls the cover a feature.

A page from the handbook, as annotated
Cover of Murder Is Not Included.

Ready to board?

Start with Murder Is Not Included

On the third night of the maiden voyage, a travel journalist dies in the spa that doesn't exist. Head office will not permit anyone to contact the authorities before Miami. The Captain would rather not. And Article 9 has made Peggy the only person aboard who can convene an inquiry, seal a room, and name the person responsible.

She has four days, no forensics, and a door log that says she did it.

Read on Amazon Read a free sample

Available on Kindle · Read with Kindle Unlimited