Murder On Board

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!

Anthony Yvonnica rated it it was amazing

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)

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Click here to buy a copy - currently £2.99 for 269 pages of travel, murder and humour.

Murder On Board now in the County Wexford shops

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

Murder In Maspalomas - online purchases
Click here for the UK Kindle version
Click here for the US Kindle version
Click here for the UK Paperback version
Click here for the US Paperback version

Murder On Board

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

Murder On Board - online purchases
Click here for the US Kindle version 

Click here for the UK Kindle version

Click here for the US Paperback version

Click here for the UK Paperback version

Book signing in Wexford towns Book Centre

I dropped into one of my favourite book shops in Wexford Town and signed some copies of my two crime novels. So if anyone wants an entertaining page-turning read then you need look no further. The Book Centre is just doors away from Boots and Pennys/ Primark.

If you want a Kindle copy of either book click o the links below and if you live further afield then click on the links below for a paperback copy.


Click here for the US Kindle version 

Click here for the UK Kindle version

Click here for the US Paperback version

Click here for the UK Paperback version

"Murder On Board" by Agatha Christie and Mark Rice

Agatha Christie’s publishers released "Murder On Board", a book of the same name, back in 1974 which was a compilation of three of Agatha Christie's mystery novels, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Death in the Air and What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!

In the “Mystery of The Blue Train” published in 1928 we find that if Hercule Poirot had not been on the luxury boat-train from London to the Riviera, the murder of a beautiful young woman would have gone un-avenged, the disappearance of the fabulous rubies would have remained unsolved, and one of the most diabolically clever conspiracies of the era would have succeeded.

“Death in the Air” published in 1935 twenty-one passengers were flying across the English Channel. In the rear of the cabin a woman, her head lolling forward, seemed to be asleep, but she was dead. Madame Giselle a money-lender, a blackmailer was a woman with a past and had been murdered. And the crime had been committed in Mr Poirot's presence by one of the occupants of the aeroplane.

In “What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw” published in 1957 Mrs McGillicuddy insisted that she had seen a murder take place from her train window. Unlike “Girl On a Train”, written by Paula Hawkins, where the murder occurred in a house backing onto the rail line, in Agatha Christies novel the murderer is a man, standing in a compartment of a train running parallel with her train. 

There is no “Murder On Board” mystery novel at all until now that is!

The novel “Murder On Board” is being published by Junction Publishing with a release date of May 2019 and the title is a perfect fit for what the book is about. Readers will join Luke and his wife on the cruise of a lifetime which is memorable for all the wrong reasons as passengers die and tensions rise. The cruise is a long one, 50 days and covers thousands of miles of ocean even venturing up the Amazon River. The passengers enjoy life on board and excursions ashore but are kept in the dark about certain, life-terminating events.

You can pre-order this new Irish crime fiction novel now for 99p!

Cruise passengers on deck and sunbathing

There is a book to be written about this topic alone. Passengers are fine and rule-obeying until the sun appears and then the sun lounger war commences. On transatlantic cruises is probably on day 5 and you have just sailed away from the Azores that the sun makes an appearance on winter cruises.

The truth of the matter is there is not a sun lounger for every passenger on board. Just isn’t.

So people resort to desperate measures to get a pair of sun loungers and have them placed in a sunny position. I believe it is generally the female partner who orders the act and the male obedient partner who sets off at as early as, wait for it......3.00 am to untie a pair of stacked loungers and relocate them on the deck to the favoured position. He then leaves them decorated with his own blue towels, sets of giant bulldog clips and some personal effects until they have eaten their breakfast. Only then will they return ready for a day of sunbathing.

Just occasionally the bagging of sun loungers backfires when a heavy downpour of rain at 8.00 am saturated the early riser’s towels and personal effects they’d left out on the loungers at the crack of dawn. An instance of natural justice I suppose.

Another antisocial passenger action is to squeeze sun loungers into spaces there really is no room for another pair of sun loungers to fit. What happens then is the pathways become so blocked that you can’t get to the swimming pool without weaving your way through a sun lounger maze.  Forward two steps, backward one step, sideways four steps and back off and start again!

You see, most sun loungers are only used for four or five hours max as passengers have activities to go to, meals to eat, shops to visit and shows to attend but once bagged they are held until sundown or at least until the sun moves around so that the lounger is now in shadow.  Generally, about 4.30 pm the loungers are vacated and the crew begin the job of stacking them away for the night.

Sunbathing and getting badly burnt seem to go hand in hand for many passengers. I saw a guy with a red burnt back so vivid that I had to shield my eyes from the glare. Yet he was ignorant of the state of his back. Surely one of his group of pals would have told him to cover up or step inside for a while? It’s amazing how burnt grown-up adults can get. How they underestimate the power of the sun despite living on the planet earth for 50 + years beggars belief.

Read more about life on board a modern cruise ship in “Murder On Board” (available on pre-order from 5th February 2019). This is my latest novel and available now at 99 cents or pence. 

The ship left harbour with 2,899 souls for a 50-day cruise but will be returning with significantly less. Could it be because the average age of the passengers is 73 and shit happens, old people die? 

Maybe it's because the ship is sailing 1,000 miles up the Amazon River with its precious cargo of geriatric guests placing them in an area of 100% humidity?

Or maybe it's because the Amazon River is home to the Zeka virus and the ship is sailing towards millions of female mosquitoes just waiting to attack its passengers?

Or is it simply because a killer is loose amongst them!

Cruise formal dining has deadly drawbacks

Self Service restaurant

If you have booked the cruise with a set dining time and an agreement to share with up to six other passengers then you will be sitting down to dinner every night with those six individuals. Your only escape is to pass on the formal waiter served five-course dinner in the main restaurant and pay to eat at one of several extra dining restaurants or go to eat in the self-service restaurants onboard which are free.

My character Luke and his wife Margaret booked an early dinner at 6.30 pm with six complete strangers. Their cruise duration was fifty nights. Can you imagine just how stressful that could have been if nobody got along or nobody made an effort at conversing over the interminable five-course meal each night?

I have sat and watched such a table of four who sat facing each other, in complete silence, night after night.  The two couples didn’t even bother to talk to each other much less the pair who sat stony-faced opposite them! Each night they sat in perfect silence for two hours before rising and going their separate ways.

We booked a table for four on our first cruise and sat there at 6.25 pm looking at our watches and the empty seats opposite us. Who would they be and what type of life have they lived were just two of many questions bubbling around our minds as we waited. Would they be young or old?  experienced cruisers or a couple taking their first cruise? As the minute's ticked by we gradually began to realise that there was no other couple. So for the rest of that cruise, we sat down every night with our absent partner’s empty seats opposite us.

If you booked a table for two you could just find your own conversation drying up after 50 nights. Often the table for two’s is located close to other tables for two’s so there is every chance that you’ll spark up conversations with other couples in the same predicament. 

Read more about life onboard a modern cruise ship in “Murder On Board” (available on pre-order from 5th February 2019). This is my latest novel. The ship left the harbour with 2,899 souls for a 50-day cruise but will be returning with significantly less. 

Could it be because the average age of the passengers is 73 and shit happens, old people die? 

Maybe it's because the ship is sailing 1,000 miles up the Amazon River with its precious cargo of geriatric guests placing them in an area of 100% humidity?

Or maybe it's because the Amazon River is home to the Zeka virus and the ship is sailing towards millions of female mosquitoes just waiting to attack its passengers?

Or is it simply because a killer is loose amongst them?  


Click here for the US Kindle version at $2.58 

Click here for the UK Kindle version £1.99

Click here for the US Paperback version $15.00

Click here for the UK Paperback version £11.58

What did you pay for your cruise then?

Isn’t there always one on board? The passenger who keeps reminding you that he got his cruise for half the price you did by booking the week before sailing and he ended up with a cabin with a balcony!  It grates with you because you’d booked 6 months ago and could only get an inside cabin, located right in the bow of the ship and battered by the breaking waves.

Then another passenger who, a week into the cruise, chips in to say that they were in a cabin two doors away from yours on deck 5 but they managed to persuade the ship's officers to move them to a lovely cabin mid-ships on deck 8 because they complained louder and harder than you did about the banging and crashing noises during the night.  Your wife looks at you in an unfriendly manner and you squirm in your seat. The look is a sort of “Strap on a pair and go to Reception tonight and get us moved ya wimp!” kind of way.  You know what?  It does work. Appear in your PJs at Reception at about 2.00 am and to bare your soul to the duty officer and finish by proclaiming that you will never sail with them again. Nor will any of your large family or your partner’s family .......or your (dead) grandparents either!

Then there is always the passenger’s who have money to burn, take every expensive ship organised excursion and moan endlessly about them afterwards. Would that I had the cash to afford the excursions in the first place! Get over it guys, shit happens. Look forward to your next excursion.

Read more about life on board a modern cruise ship in “Murder On Board” (available on pre-order from 5^th February 2019). This is my latest novel. The ship left harbour with 2,899 souls for a 50-day cruise but will be returning with significantly less. 

Could it be because the average age of the passengers is 73 and shit happens, old people die? 

Maybe it's because the ship is sailing 1,000 miles up the Amazon River with its precious cargo of geriatric guests placing them in an area of 100% humidity?

Or maybe it's because the Amazon River is home to the Zeka virus and the ship is sailing towards millions of female mosquitoes just waiting to attack its passengers?

Or is it simply because a killer is loose amongst them?