The Titanic Murders
Published 2026-07-27 13:42:57
Book info
- Author
- Year 1999
- Genre Mystery
- Format Ebook
- Pages 258
When a passenger is found dead inside a locked cabin aboard the opulent Titanic, it’s a crime worthy of “the Thinking Machine,” the popular fictional investigator who solves mysteries using formidable logic. So who better to crack this real-life case than author Jacques Futrelle, the man behind America’s favorite detective?
On board for a romantic getaway with his wife, Futrelle agrees to conduct a stealth inquiry. The list of suspects on the Titanic’s first-class deck is long and includes the brightest lights from high society, each with no shortage of dark secrets. As the mammoth ship speeds across the Atlantic toward its doom, Futrelle races to uncover which passenger has a secret worth killing for—before the murderer strikes again.
Set in the days leading up to the luxury liner’s tragic sinking, this historical thriller is a dazzling blend of fact and fiction that will enthrall readers with page-turning revelations and Titanic lore.
Thoughts
I recently changed my policy on book reviews, from only publishing anything that I finished, to reviewing everything whether it ends in a DNF or not. This is a book that I know I had previously given up on, but I just wanted to double check why... and I ended up reading the whole thing.
I think my initial reservation had been feeling a bit ghoulish about reading a novel based on Titanic - there's enough scrutiny and glorification of this tragedy, does it need any more? But actually getting stuck in to the book proved that wasn't a concern - it was very considerate of the calamity, and leant into the details and facts that are known with just a layer of fiction on top.
I wasn't aware of Futrelle, a real life author who died in the sinking, so it was interesting to dig into his background alongside reading the murder mystery. The characters are brought to life in a very real way, I loved how Futrelle told his wife everything - she was a partner in the whole thing in a way many wives are not in stories like this. A writer in her own right, she gets to investigate and feed her own conversations into the story.
Alongside the main two, there are characters who are larger than life normally, Thomas Andrews, the unsinkable Molly Brown, and of course Captain Smith, they were all relatable and realistic, more human than the auras that surround them.
Smith himself answered, in his navy-blue uniform today, graced with the usual ribbons; but he was not wearing his hat, and the lack of it was somehow disturbing. So were the eyes in the comfortingly stern white-bearded visage: they seemed cloudy, troubled.
If you have any of the same reservations that I did, about reading fiction based on the Titanic, then you might want to give this a miss. But it's worth repeating that it's not fanciful, it's grounded and respectful throughout. There are other books in this 'Disasters' series that I would previously have avoided but am now interested in picking up.
There's no specific reason this book doesn't get the full 5 out of 5, perhaps just a small lingering level of discomfort, but it's definitely one that could be recommended onwards.
Rating: 4 / 5