The Strangler

>>*News travels quickly and mysteriously on board ship. By the time lunch was over, the rumour began to spread that Mr. Smith's death had not been due to natural causes.* >The bibulous Mr Smith was no pillar of virtue. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the Enriqueta, he met someone he knew on board at midnight and was strangled. Chief Inspector Shand of the Yard, a fellow traveller on the luxury liner, takes on the case, ably assisted by his friend Jasper Mellish. At first the only clue is what the steward saw: a bandaged face above a set of green pyjamas. But surely the crime can be connected to Mr Smith's former and decidedly shady compatriots in Buenos Aires? *The Murder on the Enriqueta* (1929: originally called *The Strangler* in the US) is a thrilling whodunit, including an heiress in peril and a jazz age nightclub among its other puzzle pieces. >>For its part the magazine *Punch* drolly cast its praise for Thynne's *The Murder on the "Enriqueta"* in poetic form: >>*The Murder on the Enrigueta* is a recent thriller by Miss Molly Thynne, >>A book I don't advise you, if you're busy, to begin. >>It opens very nicely with a strangling on a liner >>Of a shady sort of passenger, an out-bound Argentiner. >>And, unless I'm much mistaken, you will find yourself unwilling >>To lay aside a yarn so crammed with situations thrilling. >>(To say nothing of a villain with a gruesome taste in killing.) >>>From the Introduction by Curtis Evans