Stuart Turton, Raven Books, 2020.
Excellent story. Starts brilliantly. Stuart uses lots of vivid phrases to describe the setting.
The ‘Saardam’ sails from Batavia to Amsterdam. 1634. But the journey takes the passengers and crew to a very dark and scary place. The mystery thickens as the sky blackens. There’s a killer on board and only Samuel Phipps can unmask him. And he is locked up in the storeroom.
I was drawn in to the world of the interesting characters very quickly. Arent is a giant of a man who sees his role in life as protecting the body and intellect of Samuel Phipps, a celebrated unraveller of puzzles and enigmas. Sara is the abused wife of the Governor of Batavia, the Dutch colony in the East Indies. Her daughter Lia and her best friend Creesjie, the Governor’s mistress, are also aboard the ‘Saardam’, the Dutch East India Company ship bringing them all back to Amsterdam. The year is 1634.
The mystery begins to grow immediately the passengers reach the dock, and it thickens as the sky blackens. The voyage on the sea is also a journey into a very dark and scary place. The tensions builds, chapter after chapter. However, at the climax, although I thought it was well-worked and drew together the strands of the story, it still left me unsatisfied.
I realise the book feeds into another adventure for these characters, but only Sara came close to my own views about the resolution.
The setting is the Seventeenth Century, aboard a Dutch ship, with only one character being not Dutch. The dialogue is quite modern in order for us English-speakers to enter into the minds and conversation of everybody. Stuart includes a note at the end of the story to explain that the book is not meant to be a history lesson; the setting is merely a backdrop for the story. But including ‘OK’ in the dialogue grated on me, yet I guess it shouldn’t.
This reservation will not prevent me from reading other books by Stuart Turton. I think the way he presents distinctive characters is great.
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