I just want to thank you for providing me with hours of sheer pleasure! The book was a joy to read. Luke was perfect - only an accountant would be capable of dispatching individuals to their deaths in such a callous, dispassionate way!
The book was so informative- I learned so much about the various ports of call. Having read this book I have definitely erased ‘Take a cruise’ from my bucket list.
I can’t help wondering if there is possibly some overlap between Luke and Mark!
Many thanks
I will seek your books out in future
Eileen"
I replied as follows:
Hi Eileen,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my book and then to email me. Your email has given me a real boost and I have another book I am working on that's been laying in the doldrums. With your words ringing in my ears I'll get right back to it. When I wrote "Murder On Board" I truly intended it to be informative and humorous in equal measure and I'm pleased that you read it that way. I wrote a lot while we were on board and then layered the fictional killings over the actual reality. Names were changed to save the people we encountered but they really were a nice bunch. Over such a long cruise we bonded well with all and I looked forward to the evening meals where the most unusual stories poured forth.
Do not be put off cruising for a minute as we have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the world via a beautiful ship and great days at sea. People do die at sea unfortunately but no more than would occur at home. The passengers that you sit with throughout the day on the deck sunbathing or in the buffet restaurants have such wonderful lives to tell you about. I loved it all and we are booked on another but have slipped it out twice now.
I'll happily send you an early copy of the next one, currently called "Expiry Date Known"
It is 7.00 am and we are sailing at 18 knots through
rough seas off the coast of Africa. The ship's movement is not enough to knock
a cup of coffee or glass off a table but it does make the wardrobe doors swing
open releasing wheelie suitcases which roll out across the carpeted cabin floor
crashing into the wall opposite. We, myself and Margaret, exit our room and walked
along a seemingly endless corridor of doors. Doors that were followed more doors, only
differentiated by a single-digit yet united by the knowledge they were all even-numbered.
The odd numbers were on the other side of the ship. Onboard deck floor maps are posted on walls in
the open areas, near the stairs and lifts as it is very easy to get lost on
this gigantic vessel. Periodically as we walk, we pass openings on our right,
options to turn inward but we ignore them and press on. Our destination is the
self-service restaurant located in the very bow of the ship and up on Deck 12.
The Oriel is a 70,000-ton feat of German engineering. Manufactured in 2002 and
only refurbished last year it has two thousand passengers and eight hundred
crew on board for this particular cruise.
Occasionally, as we walk we have to adjust our centre
of balance as the floor tilts upwards to the right and then down to the left. Being up early this morning we are encountering
no one, not even the cabin stewards with their trolleys. It would appear that
the longer the cruise goes on the later passengers rise. As today is the third
last day of this cruise I can understand the passengers' desires to squeeze
every last luxurious moment out of the remaining days. The cruise itself had gone very well and I
felt that finally I could understand and relate to the cruise lines catchphrase
“This is the life.”
These words in the television advert were spoken by an
actor in his mid-forties whilst resting on his elbows, leaning over the ship’s
rail, wearing a white dressing gown and clutching a glass of freshly squeezed
orange juice. Beyond him lay miles of sparkling blue sea and to his right, the
ship’s bow was cutting a crisp clean path through the calm waters. Who wouldn’t want to enjoy a life like that? The image portrayed to me was one of luxury,
elegance, and total relaxation. I concluded that he probably wouldn’t have
looked quite so smug if they had filmed that advertisement today and on this
ship.
Within a
few minutes, we reached the final opening and turned into a large carpeted foyer.
To my left, an open glass floor to ceiling window showed the ship cutting
through the rippling snarling white-tipped waves while to my right three sets
of lifts stood waiting with their double doors closed. Beyond the lifts, a
carpeted staircase lay available for use by the more energetic of passengers.
Above each lift were digital displays indicating the floor upon which, each
lift currently stood. I hit the red button on the nearest lift to our deck,
Deck 8 and seconds later with Margaret I stepped into the empty lift. Once in
the doors shut solidly behind us. We’d ridden these lifts many times over the
past fortnight, several times a day and I was thinking more of what I’d eat for
breakfast than anything else when I pressed the control panel button for Deck
12.
Unusually though, instead of illuminating our destination
button, the whole panel just died. I
tried to press it again but the panel just appeared as if it had switched off.
Nothing I did now mattered a jot. We looked at each other and shrugged. “That’s
odd,” said Margaret and she smiled a tad nervously. I smiled back and looked
around for instructions on what to do next if your panel dies.
Suddenly with a jolt, the lift began to rise. I
relaxed, the panel was still dead but the
lift had obviously remembered my request and we’d be heaping steaming hot
sausages, rashers, tomatoes, toast and scrambled egg onto our plates in minutes.
Up the lift rose past deck 9, past deck 10 and past deck 11 until it came to a
halt on deck 12. We both moved towards the doors in anticipation of exiting but
they remained closed. Margaret pressed and pressed the door buttons but got no
joy. We looked around to see what else we could do. Then with another jolt, the
lift took off again. Gathering pace it rose to deck 13 and then deck 14. I began
to panic as I knew there was no deck 15 so I was bloody pleased when came to a
juddering halt at Deck 14.
Then, without any instruction from us, the lift set
off at pace downwards and gathering speed as it went. It hurtled down past the
floors, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and was heading for 5. I suspected 5 was
the lowest it could go, and it duly reached it with a shudder and we suddenly came
to a terrifying death defying stop. We were both sent sprawling across the
floor. Margaret cried out “Luke you have to do something!”
Before I could stand up, the lift had set off again.
This time we travelled upwards which relieved me as the opposite direction
would have lead to the sinking of the ship and our certain death. For the next
few minute’s we sailed up and then down the lift shaft, passing floors without
stopping and then reversing the journey time and again. All the while the ship
was rocking and heaving from side to side. I was terrified but I knew I had to
do something. Once I’d calmed myself down and had time to assess what was
happening, I flipped open the metal cover in the lift wall and pressed the
alarm button hidden inside. I could hear a shrill bell going off outside the
lift but nothing else occurred and our terror ride continued.
Then in desperation, I remembered the small amount of
morse code my merchant navy officer and sea experienced father had taught me. I tapped out small patterns of morse
code—dit, dit, dit, pause, dit, dit, dit, pause dit dit dit, on the alarm
button. This is morse code for SOS – emergency help wanted – ship in distress but
no one reacted. No call came from a control centre in the bowel of the ship or upon
the ship's bridge where officers were on duty twenty-four seven. The
loudspeaker within the lift remained stubbornly silent.
As the minutes passed and the violent lift movements
up and down past the floors continued, our anxiety grew. I increased the
frequency of the alarm button pressing until finally my finger was permanently
on the button. Margaret was in a panic. With
eyes wide open, mouth poised in a silent scream, she stood ramrod straight,
upright and jammed into the farthest corner of the lift. She felt around the
smooth silver metallic wall for a handrail or something to grip onto but found
nothing. Eventually, the lift of its own
volition stopped moving but we were still trapped inside it. I heard a voice
from above shouting something to us but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
The lift remained static at deck level 5. A short while later, that seemed to
us an age, a technician opened the lift doors and we stepped out shaken but
okay.
"All out?" asked a voice from somewhere
above us.
“Yes. It’s just the two of us” I answered. With that,
a technician in overalls jumped down from the lift ceiling and joined us in the
lobby. He smiled at both of us and said,
"I was walking past the lift when I heard your alarm bell. I've been chasing this lift up and down the
floors for the past five minutes or more."
It didn't inspire confidence. What if he hadn't been
passing? What then? I thought.
"There are loads of safety features on this
lift," he informed us. "You would never have fallen to the foot of
the shaft." I wasn’t so sure. We walked up the stairs to deck 12 and sat
in the restaurant not talking just looking at the sea rushing past our window.
Neither of us felt like eating so we settled for two cups of steaming hot tea.
Upon leaving half an hour later we walked past the lift and I didn't see any,
Out of Order signs. Not only that, the lift appeared to be continuously in use.
I went directly to reception and made a formal report of the incident, verbally
to an officer who typed as I spoke.
"Yes, we had reports from passengers of a lift
sailing past floors without stopping," he confirmed.
“I would have
been reassured if, upon my pressing of the alarm button, someone in the ship’s
crew had made contact with me via the PA system or from outside the lift as we
have just spent a considerable period of time yo-yo’ing between ten decks
unaware that anyone knew we were trapped in a lift with a mind of its own.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I can do no more than
register your comments, sir.”
“Well don’t say I didn’t try to warn you – that lift
is a death trap!” I said loudly turning on my heels. With hindsight, given what
happened next, I probably should have taken the matter further.
Above is an extract from Murder On Board – available now on Amazon – click here for link
I really must log into Goodreads more as I have just come across this readers review for Murder On Board. Anthony summarised my story far better than I myself have!
One of the best books I have ever read! The book was a diary of a 50-day cruise. I "L-O-V-E-D" the author's style:
Today we played bridge. Then we had tea. Later I killed a guy. Then we sat and listened to the violinist. Dinner was excellent, especially the lamb.
I have been on cruises and I despise people who stop. When walking through a narrow crowded corridor and the people in front of you just stop walking...... They would be on my list. The lady who is seated with us at dinner, and she sits too close and won't stop yabbering about nothing .... she would be on my list. The author of this book finally dealt with "those" people.
Now the author didn't kill anybody. He simply took a cruise. I'm sure the book stemmed from his thinking how much better his day would be if the woman who reached bare-handed into the buffet food somehow found herself properly chastised.
The book was excellent. I wish I were friends with the author.(less)
I've been taking cruise holidays for many years now and there have always been viruses onboard ships. I've travelled on P&O Cruises and TUI / Marella Cruises and each line takes its responsibilities seriously. It's not unusual, anytime in the past five years to encounter the ships stewards and room staff disinfecting handrails, providing hand sanitizers in the buffet and restaurant entrances. Tissues are often available to open toilet doors and a bin waiting outside to deposit the used tissue in.
The most common bug that occurred was the Novovirus which appeared to break out on every other ship I travelled on. It is also called the winter vomiting bug. It is the most common form of gastroenteritis infection and is characterized by non-bloody diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach pain. Fever or headaches may also be experienced. It normally lasts for between one and three days but given the large number of older passengers board with underlying medical conditions it often took many days longer for those people to recover. All persons with an illness are confined to their cabin and meals are brought to them until they recover. Ships have medical centres and a ships doctor so the stricken passengers probably visited the centre when they first became ill.
What can also spread illness is the air conditioning systems which transfers air around the ship, particularly to those passengers occupying the inside cabins which by their location do not have windows. Many exterior cabins do have windows but there are not capable of being opened and so they depend on the air conditioning system too.
I last cruised in January this year and was safely home when the stories of cruise ships being refused permission to dock because of the Covid-19 outbreak on board began to circulate. However, what people forget is that many other cruise ships were at sea at that time and had no cases of Covad-19 and safely completed their journeys. The focus tends to be on the bad news stories.
Deaths do occur on cruises as death is just part of life. No one knows when their time will come and people can die for many different reasons other than the coronavirus. However, it is not unknown for passengers to have booked the cruise a year in advance of departure and to join the ship even if they have developed serious medical conditions in the intervening period.
A little known fact is that there are morgues onboard cruise ships and most ships of c70,000 tons and upwards carry morgues capable of holding five or more bodies.
Murder On Board, my book tells the story of deaths on a modern cruise ship for reasons other than the coronavirus. The story follows the action of a murdering pensioner whose driven to actions he may live to regret.
Pick up a copy and join him on his cruise of a lifetime across the Atlantic ocean to the Caribbean islands, the USA and South America. Join him in the Amazon and on a small canoe making his way through the rainforests. Join him as he steps down the plank at every port wondering if he'll be handcuffed on his return.
I wrote Murder On Board, a chapter a day because I wanted the reader to experience the whole sensation of cruising as much as I wanted them to understand what motivated our newly retired pensioner to murder fellow passengers and crew.
People said to me you can't write for both audiences, crime and travel simultaneously but I thought I could and you can read my efforts in Murder On Board.
I mean who hasn't been curious about taking a cruise to the other side of the world?
I mean, aren't the seas bouncing the boat about a lot?
Aren't the days at sea boring with nothing to do?
Isn't the food bland and just a buffet?
No one dresses up for dinner anymore, do they?
And when you get to where you are going you're lucky if they let you go ashore?
And aren't the excursions extortionately expensive?
No, no, no, no, no and yes if you take a cruise line organised excursion.
I knew nothing about cruising until 2014 when we experienced our first one and I loved it! I loved the whole experience, particularly the bit that says "the world is brought to you". Wake up today in Venice and tomorrow look out the window and its Dubrovnik outside! The next day its Porto.
I also loved the unpack once. You can holiday all around the Canary Islands or the Azores and then enjoy a few days in the Caribbean before flying home. Fourteen days of golden memories stored away to revisit, at your leisure.
So I sat down after the most jaw-dropping fifty-day cruise that took in the Azores, the Caribbean, the USA, Mexico and the Canary Islands on the way home, and wrote for days. I hope you will give it a read. It's free currently on Kindle Unlimited and only £2.99 to buy on Amazon so dip your foot in the water and find out what happens on a cruise.
I'm just back from a Wexford Local Author's night of readings in the Red Book Shop in Selskin House, St Peter's Square, Slippery Green, Wexford, Y35 ER2F in Wexford town. It was an epic night with no less than fourteen authors attending! They covered so many different genres of writing that there was something for everyone.
Wexford Local Authors at the Red Book Shop
From poetry to biographies, crime, musical history, local history, exercise books for MS sufferers, collections of short stories, readings from scripts. The shop was bulging with readers and they sat for almost two hours as they were bombarded with words.
My extract that was the second last reading of the night was extremely well received and I loved to hear the laughter, at the right moments! Murder In Maspalomas is the opposite of a dark, menacing read. I wrote it so that the humour and the drama of the story went hand in hand.
Mark Rice reading from Murder In Maspalomas
What starts as a story of how someone tries to make a legitimate buck by importing from China the kid's number 1 Christmas toy for that year, becomes a terrifying game of hide and seek as an unwitting couple ae pursued by a bunch of violent drug gangsters seeking to collect on a debt.
Murder In Maspalomas
Murder In Maspalomas
There are copies to buy in the Red Book Shop and the Book Centre in
Wexford Town
Luke's previous cruise experiences have left him battered and bruised. This time it's going to be different. No more rolling over and just taking the crap. No more instances where he becomes a human doormat. No more bottling it up. No more saying and doing nothing. Luke is a different man, only nobody knows it..................yet.
Murder On Board
There are copies to buy in the Red Book Shop and the Book Centre in
Wexford Town
