Jude Grove
The Gilded Wren Mysteries
The ship
Bellamy Leisure Group bought a tired hull at auction, painted over thirty years of history, and announced a boutique luxury line. Somebody has to stand at the top of the gangway and say it is lovely.
Three lives of one hull
She has had three names and none of them were hers
She was a North Sea ferry from 1994, then a Gulf casino boat with the corridors renumbered and the wiring left where it was, then eight years at anchor doing nothing at all. Now she is the Gilded Wren, and there are six hundred and twelve people aboard who paid for a palace.
The refit was signed off on the fourth of December. It was not complete.
The Purser box
Margaret "Peggy" Nunn is Director of Guest Delight, which means she is paid to make the difference between the brochure and the ship somebody else's problem. She is very good at it. She is loyal to the crew and not to the company, and that is the whole of her character.
Then a clerical error in the registry of the Republic of Kastrovia — landlocked, and running a shipping register since 1957 — enters her in the crew manifest as Purser. Under Article 9 of the Kastrovian Merchant Shipping Act, the entry, and not the appointment, constitutes the office.
Nobody appointed her anything. Somebody typed her name in a box.
It gives her charge of money, effects, deaths, and any argument between passengers worth less than five hundred ducats. Nobody, including her, can find out what a ducat is.
As advertised, and as fitted
The marble is laminate. The spa is a room with a sign. Deck Eleven is closed for enhancement and nobody is enhancing anything. The theatre's two hundred and fourteen seats were bolted down, and were sold in May to a cinema in Panama, so the daily programme calls the room Standing Social.
None of this is ever remarked on by anybody aboard, which is the point. The ship is the joke. The sea is genuinely lovely and the holiday is never sad.
The crew
A hundred and four people, and most of them deserve better
Ninety-one of them are on contracts tied to this vessel. If she is pulled from service, their right to be aboard ends with her. They sail all six books.
- Vesna Radić, Second Engineer. Carries a bucket. The ship goes into it, one fitting at a time. Do not tell Saffron.
- Jonty Fisk, Entertainments Director. Prints all seven days of the programme in Miami before sailing, because it is cheaper by the run. Nothing changes. That is the point of printing them.
- Dario Bassani, Executive Chef. Four hundred covers, one oven, and fourteen written requests for a second.
- Captain Emil Panno. Would rather not, and says so exactly once a book.
- Saffron Wilde, Brand Director. Wrote the handbook in one night and meant every word of it.
- Bo. Sleeps in the one deck chair on the ship that is structurally sound.
The books
Six books, one ship, less of her every time
Each one is a complete mystery and re-introduces the ship from scratch, so you can start anywhere. The ship gets smaller every book, and that is not an accident.
- 1 Murder Is Not Included A travel writer dies in a spa that does not exist. Everything works badly. Read on Amazon
- 2 Wedding Package Sold Separately The first wedding at sea is on Friday. On Wednesday the bride's son is missing. Coming
- 3 Formal Night, Fatal Morning The theatre seats have been sold to a cinema in Panama. Somebody engineers a blackout. Read on Amazon
- 4 Some Restrictions Apply The ship stops dead in calm water. A radio goes missing and nobody can leave. Read on Amazon
- 5 Sea View, Partially Obstructed Operating out of three decks. A death that reads as an accident. Read on Amazon
- 6 The last one What is left of her, and the man who signed her off as finished. Coming
Available on Kindle · Read with Kindle Unlimited