After having immigrated to America, Captain Jim and his wife Diana are heading from Boston to Liverpool on one of 1894's elaborate Cunard ocean liners. Jim meets an elderly Spainard during the rough first evening as he tries to rather descriptively tries to find his sea legs. When the elderly man is found in the locked music room. tied to a chair and garroted, the Captain of the ship leans on Jim's past investigative experience to solve this locked room within a locked room mystery before they get to England. There is a ship full of suspects and Jim relies on Diana's capable instincts as well as his own to try to solve the crime. ( )

The historical aspect is well done, the plot is interesting and the pacing is good but the writing is choppy which prevented me from actually getting into the story. I found the characters rather flat and I feel no desire to read the other books in the series.

Thank you to whatever nice publisher it was who sent me the ARC for review. ( )

In the summer of 1894, Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife, Lady Diana Framji, set sail for England. When the enigmatic Spaniard Don Juan Nepomuceno is mysteriously murdered, Captain Jim is asked to uncover the killer before they reach Liverpool in six days. With a thousand suspects and a locked-cabin crime, Jim and Diana, inspired by Sherlock Holmes, must solve the murder, all while navigating the high society world of the ship's first-class passengers.

This is the first book of the series I’ve read, so it’s a little awkward since it is book three. The book does a good job, however, of making sure a new reader is brought up to speed on who our main character is and how he’s reached the point he has. Captain Jim is immediately a sympathetic person, being terribly seasick on a ship, and his concerns for his wife.

The plot moved at a good pace. At times, it was rapid action, and at times it was slower, more introverted, as Jim contemplates the tangle before him. I will confess that I guessed the ending rather early on, but still found Jim’s journey to the truth enjoyable. The only thing keeping this from a full five star rating for me is an instance where Lady Diana uses a method of finding something that was a little too close to magic for my taste.

Overall, this was fun to listen to. The narrator did a phenomenal job of bringing Captain Jim to life. I would definitely recommend this to readers looking for a historical mystery. I received a free copy through NetGalley and all opinions expressed are my own. ( )

Murder on the high seas!

Nev March is killing me with this splendid series
It’s 1894 and Lady Diana and Captain James O’Trey are bound for England on a luxury Cunard liner.
They’re no sooner settled in than a murder is committed. Don Juan Nepomuceno, a Spanish diplomat, but more than that, a nobleman and a general.
Jim offers his services to investigate and is given free rein. He’s become an American, and is seen as a neutral party in what could become a volatile diplomatic occurrence between Spain and Britain.
The thing is Jim had had interaction with Don Juan the night before. A message from the Don was sent to Jim to attend the Don, but had arrived too late.
Eight days to find the killer. Can Jim and Diana do it?
There’s plots within plots, diplomatic and personal.
A young woman drowns, another’s life is threatened.
Then there’s the dark history of the Don Juan. Trouble in Cuba when the US ship Virginius was captured by the Spanish. A military tribunal executed fifty-three men. That tribunal was led by the General.
The pace is relentless and I was on the edge of my seat during the whole of my reading sprint!

A St. Martin’s Press ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. ( )

Nev March's Captain Jim Agnihotri mysteries are among several interesting series that have cropped up in the last few years providing good reading from the mystery point of view and also examining historical issues of class, race, and gender in India during the colonial and early post-colonial period.

In the case of the Captain Jim Agnihotri mysteries, set in the late 1800s, all three of these topics come into play. Agnihotri, now using the name O'Trey, a corruption of his original last name, is the illegitimate son of an English father and Indian mother who was raised in a an orphanage. Having work as a soldier and then being invalided out, he has come to work as a private investigator, first in India, then, after his marriage to the sister of one of his wealthy clients, in the U.S., where they hope their relationship will attract less opprobrium than it does in India. He's triply marked: visibly "native" and from the lower classes and conscious of the way in which his wife has "lowered" herself through their marriage.

In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, O'Trey/Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are sailing from the U.S. to England. Their marriage has become strained and O'Trey/Agnihotri has been unable to discover the issue that is clearly causing his wife a great deal of pain and vulnerability. Nonetheless, he's certain that whatever is happening must be his fault. This issue plays out alongside the mystery over the course of the bovel.

During his first night on the ship, O'Trey/Agnihotri is struck by seasickness, to which he is subject. While fighting his nausea on the open deck, he meets the Spaniard Don Juan Nepomuceno. The two quickly recognize one another as former soldiers and realize that they each are carrying burdens with them based in their military service, but they don't discuss specifics.

When Nepomuceno sends a note to O'Trey/Agnihotri requesting help, O'Trey/Agnihotri arrives too late: Nepomuceno has been murdered. Nepomuceno represents his country, which is engaged in a civil war, as a diplomat, and tensions are high between England and Spain. As a result, the ship's captain requests that O'Trey/Agnihotri try to solve the murder during the ship's remaining days at sea. If this can't be done, passengers will be held as potential witnesses when the ship arrives in port and tensions between England and Spain will almost certainly worsen.

Nepomuceno's death is a sort of locked-room mystery. He's discovered in the ship's music room, with the door and all windows are locked from the inside. He's also sitting in a chair that has been positioned directly in front of a mirror. Clearly the murderer, who strangled Nepomuceno, wanted to watch Nepomuceno die and wanted Nepomuceno to witness his own death as well.

O'Trey/Agnihotri is simultaneously facing a lack and a plethora of potential killers. He has no idea who may have had such hatred for Nepomuceno, so he can't eliminate any of the ship's passengers or crew from his list of suspects.

The novel is populated by the kind of cast one expects in a mystery set in this particular historical moment. There are the two wealthy brothers—the older formal and controlling; the younger rash and disinterested in social niceties. There's a wealthy older woman in a wheelchair who is sharp of tongue and continually dissatisfied with her two servants; a wealthy American businessman; his much-younger wife; a wealthy couple, very concerned about social hierarchies and easily offended, with small children; a wealthy young woman traveling on her own; and the ship's captain and crew.

March does quite a solid job of laying false trails, which leaves readers wondering about the solution to the murder through the entirety of the novel. There are several issues—personal, financial, and political—that might have triggered the murder, and none can be easily dismissed.

If you enjoy historical mysteries, particularly those that examine issues of social equity and diversity, you'll find The Spanish Diplomat's Secret an engaging and rewarding read.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. ( )