I’m not sure whether I was more enchanted with the mystery, writing, or the history of the Lusitania itself in Murder on the Lusitania by Conrad Allen. I really had a good time reading this novel; it was really well-written, well-crafted, and entertaining to the end. George Porter Dillman is plainclothes security aboard the Lusitania’s maiden voyage. While he assumes that the most he’ll have to worry about is some minor thefts, he soon runs into the larger problem of murder. His suspect field is limited, and nobody can escape until they reach the dock, but his quest to solve the murder becomes more convoluted by the minute. As he gets to know the field of suspects better, it only becomes more apparent that there is more than one person who has the ability to commit murder on the Lusitania.
I found Allen’s writing style to be completely charming and very creative. He weaves the story like a thread, and includes multiple character perspectives that enrich the storyline. My favorite feature of his writing style was his way of giving away the least possible information about a character, and then releasing it at the critical moment. For instance, he doesn’t reveal that Dillman is part of the security team until about a third through the book. As readers, we can infer that Dillman is there for a purpose, and it’s not nefarious, but it’s not concretely stated until it needs to be revealed. It’s an interesting way to build a story, and it was done well enough that I didn’t miss having the knowledge beforehand. That sort of strategy might have tripped up a lesser author.
This novel was also packed with information about the Lusitania, which I found fascinating. I’ve always liked learning about the Titanic and the opulence aboard that ship, so I loved all of the information throughout this book. I did some outside research because I was curious about the ship, and found that the Lusitania is most known for its tragic ending, sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. Most articles do not talk about its short life, so it was bittersweet to think about the maiden voyage through this book. If you’d like to learn more about the Lusitania, check out these articles:
- Love or hate The Daily Mirror, this article is interesting because they include a copy of the original Mirror article documenting the tragedy. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rms-lusitania-sinking-incredible-new-5650272
- A longer, more in-depth post from PBS: https://www.pbs.org/lostliners/lusitania.html
- This is a slideshow with captions from CBS for those of you that prefer pictures: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-lusitania-disaster/
The only other thing that I will mention about this book is that the synopsis led me to believe that Dillman and Genevieve Masefield (I have not mentioned her previously, but ostensibly this is the beginning of the Dillman and Masefield mystery series) were working together the entire time to solve the mystery together. In reality, they only seemed to form a bond within the last 20% of the book. This isn’t a complaint, but something that I felt could have been made more clear in the synopsis. It was actually a good change of pace to not have that instant attraction between characters. All in all, this novel was a little atypical compared to most of the books that I’ve been reading, but I totally enjoyed that. I am excited to read the next in the series!