Blue Water: the Instant Times Bestseller (Laurence Jago)

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It is his great chance to redeem himself at Whitehall – except that his predecessor has taken the secret of the treaty’s hiding place to his watery grave. The reader is right there, on board the transatlantic mail ship, the Tankerville, tasting the salty air, feeling the heat and humidity of the Caribbean with every creak and groan of the ship. This is the sequel to Black Drop, Leonora Nattrass’ 2021 debut novel which introduced us to the character of Laurence Jago. His secret mission is to aid the civil servant charged with carrying an important treaty to Congress, which will hopefully prevent the Americans from joining with the French in their war against Britain.

However, the name of another student, David Moore, who either fell or was pushed in front of a train in 1998, keeps cropping up – and when Rice’s apparent drug overdose turns out to be murder, DI Kaur suspects there may be a link between the two deaths. The style of writing took a little while to get used to but I think helped to add to the story as it helped draw the reader into the period more. Blue Water is a mystery with sea salt running through its veins and the whiff of ozone and intrigue emanating from every page.Although given what I said before, the main character seems a bit too foolish to play the part of clever youngster. When the civil servant meets an unfortunate 'accidental' end, Laurence becomes the one person standing between Britain and disaster.

His real mission is to deliver the Jay Treaty, a document of great importance to the peace between the US and Britain.MACLEAN'A FINE ADVENTURE REMINISCENT OF PATRICK O'BRIAN' - SUNDAY TIMESThis is the secret report of Laurence Jago. When the civil servant meets an unfortunate end, Laurence becomes the one person standing between Britain and disaster. Almost like a locked room mystery, the fact this the setting was primarily on board the Tankerville meant that as the reader you can only assume you know what is happening, but as the way with many well written mysteries, the twists keep coming to ensure nothing is as you think. There are some quirky characters on the ship, including a comtesse and her burly nephew, a prejudiced cotton plantation owner, and even an Irish actress and her dancing bear cub.

Although this is a sequel to Black Drop, which I haven’t read and features our protagonist, Laurence Jago, I had no issues reading it as a stand alone (but will definitely be picking up Black Drop to read in the future! With almost the entire story taking place at sea and therefore with a limited number of characters, the mystery has a ‘locked room’ feel and kept me guessing until the end. Her first novel Black Drop was a Times Book of the Year and her second Blue Water was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Set in the near future, Michael C Grumley’s new thriller Deep Freeze probes issues surrounding the quest for immortality.A very likeable main protagonist plus an interesting setting aboard a ship, some characters from the first book in the series, some new. As the story progresses, Jago finds that his fellow passengers all have their own motives to find the treaty for themselves. The plot suffers from a lack of breadth as do almost all books set in so limited a scene as a ship at sea, but Natrass did her best with it and the book was engaging enough, despite the abject failure of the attempt at plot-twist introduction.