"Murder On Board" released and now the reviews are in - 5-stars

So I opened up Goodreads.com this morning never suspecting that I'd actually received my first reader's review and low and behold there it was. 

"Murder On Board" has been given a 5-star review and comments to boot! 

Truthfully, nothing matters more to me than the reading experience for my readers so I've had a wonderful start to the day. Thank you.

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

Murder On Board - new fiction for 2019

Murder On Board, my new fiction novel is a story of a modern-day cruise liner, the SS Azara, which carries two thousand passengers and eight hundred crew across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, the Carribean and South America before returning to Southampton, England. The cruise, which lasts a full fifty days, is a holiday of a lifetime for the passengers but for some onboard, it may end up being the final holiday of their lifetime.

Why so?

Well, because on this cruise the average age of passengers is seventy-three years so the Trafalgar Cruises advertisement should not have read Adult Cruise in the byline but more accurately Geriatric Cruise. When people reach this age, life becomes less certain. A percentage, say 2%  of passengers will die from natural causes.  Another 3%  will develop illnesses while onboard as they cope with the rough seas, high humidity and over-indulging in all of life's pleasures.

Lifes Pleasures ?- such as what?

Dinner out, every night for most passengers is a five-course meal. Your average adult when at home would be lucky, to eat out once a week, nay once a month. Fine dining for fifty nights on the trot would test the staying power of young and healthy individuals. Imagine the effect on ancient bowels, intestines and stomachs of the elderly as they take to bed within an hour of eating? Pass the indigestion tablets, please.

It's a well-known fact that alcohol intake is significantly upped on holidays in general and this is particularly encouraged by the cruise lines as they offer drinks packages to accompany the evening meals. The onboard bars are open from early to very late. Duty-free alcohol sales by the shops on board occur regularly throughout the cruise. Once the ship reaches port alcohol is invariably for sale in the harbour and local shops and can be brought back on board and in quantity.

The sun, once the Caribbean has been reached, is well in excess of  25 degrees most days and holidaymakers, particularly the elderly are rather slow to get the message to use sunblock.

What's the plot?
Luke our central character and his wife Margaret are much younger than most of their fellow passengers and this cruise celebrates Luke's retirement. He's not much of a sun-worshipper but he is determined to challenge himself on this cruise. He and Margaret will be joining classes to learn how to play bridge and dance ballroom dancing. Both will be a challenge for Luke but Margaret appreciates his commitment because these are both activities she really enjoys and he has avoided to date.

Little does she realise that in stretching Luke to learn these skills she is jeopardising other passengers lives. 

Amazon UK – 99 Pence/ Cents 

Amazon US - $1.32

Author Reading "Murder On Board"

Special Pre-Order price - 99p/99c for a limited time only!
Link - https://geni.us/FxaA8

Releasing on 2nd May 2019 via Junction Publishing

Take a chance on this maritime crime thriller.

New 2019 crime fiction novel available for limited period on pre-order

New 2019 Crime Fiction

Murder On Board is a crime fiction novel which is bursting with incidents that will grab your attention from the very first page.

On page one you will meet Luke and his wife in their hotel room on the morning they fly to join their cruise of a lifetime. They have a challenging timetable of buses, planes, trains and taxi’s which all have to work seamlessly to enable them to make the 5.00pm sailing from Southampton.

Outside their Dublin, Ireland hotel, at 7.30 am, on a January morning, the barometer is struggling to touch zero degrees but in their minds, they are already in holiday mode, focused on the balmy 25 degrees they will encounter in the Caribbean.

This is a transatlantic cruise where they will cross the Atlantic Ocean both coming and going home. That in itself is a challenge as the ship will encounter 5 days of stormy weather before they reach the Azores and another 5 days before they reach Bermuda. Fortunately, the cruise is a fifty-day voyage so there will be plenty of time to get a tan, visit the odd World Heritage site, pop into Cape Canaveral, travel up the Everglades and up the Amazon River.

Oh, and learn a new skill, bridge, ballroom dancing or painting.

Don’t people die as well?

Well, yes they do, but I don’t want to put any of you, prospective travellers, off taking a cruise, with stories of deaths on board. It happens. People die everywhere, in toilets, at home in bed, driving cars, at work. Death is just another part of living. There is a morgue on board, which is rather full at the moment.

So there isn’t a murderer on board?

Now I didn’t say that did I? Did I?

There may well be one on board but please don’t spread it around. There are 2,000 passengers and 800 crew on board and the last thing we want is to instil panic.

Remember this is a holiday of a lifetime for this geriatric group of passengers. Please don’t ruin it for them by telling them about a murderer who is killing people.

Just keep that stiff British lip buttoned and just enjoy the cruise. Let’s face it you can’t get off! We are 3 days from land.

Murder On Board by Mark Rice is on a Special Pre-Order price - 99p/99c
Please follow this Link - https://geni.us/FxaA8 to avail of this limited offer.

Releasing on 2nd May 2019 via Junction Publishing

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?