Last days to get Murder On Board for 99 cents!

The pre-order period for this new fiction novel "Murder On Board" is almost up. Only three days remain to purchase at the special price of 99 cents/pence or $1.26. The final editing has been done and the book is now awaiting full release on Amazon and Kindle on Thursday this week.

I thought I'd share with you the feedback from one of the Beta Readers who I think summed the book  up nicely with the following words:

"I really enjoyed this book.  Some of the references had me chuckling.  

I thought you had really strong characters and it was a pleasure getting to know them.

I also enjoyed the information you shared on all the places you visited.

The only negative thought I had was it seemed a little long. Almost too much information but after thinking about it. I don't see how you could leave anything out.

All in all I'd give you 5-stars for this creation."

Thank you, whoever you were, I couldn't have hoped for a better review!

✦Amazon UK Link - https://geni.us/FxaA8

✦Amazon US Link - https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Board-Mark-Rice-ebook/dp/B07ND52R6V

Cruise passengers behave badly at theater

Theatre on board

Most cruise ships of any medium to large size will have a twice-nightly show in the ship’s theatre. The theatre capacity is usually up to one thousand passengers and the show is performed twice each night so that the two thousand passengers will have the opportunity to see the show. 

Since the formal evening dinners are normally served with an early, 6.30 pm and a late 8.30 pm sittings it makes sense that the theatre’s shows commence at 8.30 pm and 10.30 pm.  However, on most adult cruises the average passenger age could be 75 and therefore most passengers will want to eat early and see the early show and be tucked up in bed by 10.30 pm. So the pressure for seats at the first show is usually great. You can ask the restaurant manager to put your name down to change to the early sitting but it’s rare that he’ll be contacting you with good news.

For the theatre shows passengers can really aggravate other passengers by the following behaviour:

1.       The woman who holds six seats when the rules clearly state you cannot reserve or hold seats.  She continues to block them as the show starts and despite repeated questions from other seat-less passengers. Finally 10 minutes into the show she relents and releases the seats.

2.       The pair of inebriated loud talking blokes that sit right behind you and fitfully take an interest in what’s going on, on the stage. Their conversation and stupid jokes will drive you round the bend and will drown out the show.

3.       Late arriving passengers who force everyone in your row to stand up so they can get to their seats and then they loudly summon a waiter to place an order and then need to go to the toilet six times during the show.

4.       The guy who has a heart attack and slumps in his seat and stops the show. OK – scratch that one. He couldn’t help himself or could he? Was he poisoned by my murderer or maybe just overindulged on an all expenses cruise? You’ll have to read the book to find out!

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. 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 laundry issues cause grief

Some cruise lines provide self-service laundries but that in itself just provides some passengers with more chances to misbehave and piss off their fellow holidaymakers. 

How would you feel if someone emptied your soaking wet clothes from the washer mid-cycle so that they can wash their own?  Not happy I’m sure!

How about people who will remove your clothes from the dryer only to replace them with their own clothes?

Or worse still, on doing the above they also end up accidentally taking a few odd socks of yours too!

Laundry run-ins are par for the course for cruises that run over a week in duration and provide the self-service laundry. There is no way to avoid clashes with passengers other than by sitting in the laundry room and guarding your smalls until they are washed and dried.

Well, there is one other avenue for washing clothes whilst on board. Hand wash in your cabin basin and use the small washing line strung across your shower.

Then finally there are the low-lives who deliberately steal your clothes as they are washed and dried and brazenly challenge you to prove your ownership when you catch up with them wearing your outfit to dinner a few nights later!

Do you feel the blood pressure rising? I do!

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

The only problem with cruises are other passengers

Unlike most forms of holiday, on a cruise holiday, you cannot choose your company. Like it or not you will be spending the whole holiday with the same group of people around you, day and night.  There is no escape from the 70,000-ton metal prison that you have signed up to, to spend the next XX days onboard.  Yes, there are excursions to enjoy and ports to visit but these are shore passes that only last a couple of hours. All too soon you will be walking up the plank and back on board your floating home.

The longer you spend with awkward, antisocial people the greater the chance you will explode and fall out with someone. With a complement of 2,000 people thrown together for any period from a week through to one hundred weeks, there will almost definitely be people who won’t get along with each other.  Remember, the only thing these passengers have in common is the ability to pay for the cruise. However, on the plus side the ships are huge with multiple decks, numerous shops and restaurants and plenty of activities to enjoy come rain or shine. But obviously people arrive with differing expectations and for some the disappointment is acute.

Public Health warning:  There now follows some huge generalisations that the author uses to make broad brush points and he now apologises in advance for any slight inadvertently delivered upon readers.

For example, there are the snobs who hanker after the golden age of cruising enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s when a select few could afford the luxury of cruises around the Mediterranean or across the Atlantic to the Caribbean islands and the United States. Their holidays are now being shared with working class and middle-class passengers whose roots are in the industrial north of England or the rural swathes of Scotland or the council estates of London’s East End. It often doesn’t fit with the older more seasoned cruisers view of life and looks of disdain can be seen at times around the ship accompanied by “Oh really” and “That’s the limit” spoken by those who remembered, first hand, the golden years. Many of the new cruisers are ignoring the formal black and white nights and are using casual wear when dining. The ballroom dance classes are now filled with working-class lads and lasses from Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool trampling awkwardly on elderly cultured feet.

  

The quality of food served on the cruise liners is still the equivalent of a stay in a five-star hotel, in my humble opinion but for some, used to better that simply isn’t good enough.  The absence of caviar and other such expensive delicacies have occurred because the cruise lines widened the passenger base by lowering prices.

Admittedly too, there have been cutbacks in the quality of certain items, for example, the “Meet the ship’s captain” evening used to be celebrated with free glasses of champagne. That has now been downgraded to Prosecco.

. 

I was enjoying Burns Night on a P&O ship when an experienced cruiser remarked that in previous years the ship provided a toast of Scottish whiskey, free to every diner. Sadly that was no more. “Thin end of the wedge,” he remarked as he recalled better times.

Look, if the price wasn’t right I wouldn’t be cruising so the inclusive approach of modern cruise lines to make bigger ships which equals cheaper cruises works for me every time.

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?  

Interview with a spy

The Conservatory, the last resort for late risers was under severe pressure from starving passengers who were approaching from every direction. It reminded me of the frenetic activity of termites within a mound. At first glance, the ants appear to be scurrying about in a random uncoordinated fashion but after some time, it becomes obvious that they are all following a specific course of action depending on their duties. The human “ants” in the Conservatory were criss-crossing the buffet area to find the food they wanted and find the shortest queue to get at it. People carrying trays with hot food and drinks weaved between each other to collect what they needed and then scurried back to their partner who held a seat for them at a table.

 I did exactly the same and returned to my wife to find two elderly passengers perched on the other chairs at our table. My wife disappeared to collect her breakfast and I exchanged nods with the others. I started to consume my breakfast and observed our companions. They sat expressionless and silent as they observed the apparent mayhem occurring just a few feet away. He must have been 90 years plus and she possibly 70. They showed no interest in picking up breakfast. The clock on the wall ticked slowly towards 10.30 am when breakfast finished so I asked the older man if I could get him any breakfast? “No, no thank you,” he said displaying his old discoloured teeth “I ate mine at 7.30 am”. Then suddenly without as much as a how do you do the old lady rose and left the table. Apparently, they hadn't known each other at all.

My offer had broken the ice and the man I think, welcomed the opportunity to talk. He was very well spoken and he spoke directly and without emotion. His wife had died 4 years ago and this was their favourite ship and he now travels alone. He loves the ballroom dancing and now has no one to dance with. However, on the Oriana, there are always women to dance with. He learnt to dance in the local village halls where tea dances were held. “And the Oriana is one of the few ships with a ballroom dance floor” he added. In fact, he’d already booked onto the follow on cruise and saved 25% of the cost by doing so.

 “Had he been to Madeira our second port of call?”

Yes, many times. He and his wife used to swim and scuba dive at Reid’s Hotel. “Marvellous swimming to be had there” he added.

Gradually he opened up and he physically unwound to reveal himself quite a tall man, over 6 foot. My wife had returned by now and was tucking into her breakfast as he told us that he was married three times. His first wife was a “colonial wife” from Kuala Lumpur. “Fantastic golfer, but that’s all she did” he recounted. Where she came from any time she needed something she just clapped her hands and the servants made it so. I’m sure, I thought to myself, she had at least one other talent, in the bedroom.  He’d travelled widely with his work and retired over thirty years ago in 1984. 

I rather tactlessly asked what he did and he surprisingly answered. “I worked in GCHQ in Cheltenham and other places abroad”. For a while, he had been based on the Pakistan border in Kashmir. “Osama Bin Laden was my neighbour,” he said with a wink of an eye. Since 9/11 didn't occur until 2001 I think he meant geographically. He said everyone he dealt with in Pakistan was corrupt. Of course you trusted no one in my business he added drily.

 "Had he seen service in the Second World War?"

Yes, he’d been in the naval intelligence division (NID) and after the war in 1965, the three service intelligence departments were merged. Not a total success he volunteered.

I asked, that given the sacrifices made in the Second World War has Britain turned out to a better place than he envisaged it to be back in 1946? To be honest he didn’t answer my question but said that there were a great many unhappy people in Britain today.

 I asked if he’d know many Irish people who fought with the Allies but he deliberately misinterpreted my question and said he met many Irish every year at Cheltenham (racecourse).

 As he spoke I sensed he was of the Burgess and McClean generation of spies. You know, the Smiley Bulger generation, from an era when espionage recruitment was class driven. If you were bright, qualified with a degree from Oxford or Cambridge and were a member of the right London private clubs you were in. Pre-war graduates had merely to be anti-fascists as the enemy was perceived to be Nazi Germany. This meant that Communist idealists were accepted and we all know where that led.

 I asked about the Suez Canal incident when the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, the joint British-French enterprise which had owned and operated the Suez Canal since its construction in 1869. Israel then invaded followed by Britain and France and all withdrew after the superpowers got involved. My father was in the Merchant Navy and his ship was requisitioned to transport a battalion of Gurkha soldiers up the canal. He volunteered nothing.

 I asked what he thought of Winston Churchill, whose anniversary was today? He suddenly wrong-footed me with a question. “Did you know that Winston Churchill had Colonel Sikorksi killed?” 

He fixed me with an unnerving steady gaze.

 “No, no I didn't” I answered blankly. 

I didn't even know who Sikorski was! It was the wrong answer and within a minute he stopped talking, rose and made his exit. 

My wife said immediately she suspected he thought he’d said too much and we were left to ponder why this murder was still secret and only whispered about 70 years after the war had ended?

 If I didn't know who Sikorski was then I certainly do now.

 POSTSCRIPT: During the Second World War, Sikorski became Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, and a vigorous advocate of the Polish cause in the diplomatic sphere. He supported the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet Union, which had been severed after the Soviet pact with Germany and the 1939 invasion of Poland — however, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin broke off Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations in April 1943 following Sikorski's request that the International Red Cross investigate the Katyń Forest massacre. In July 1943, a plane carrying Sikorski plunged into the sea immediately after takeoff from Gibraltar, killing all on board except the pilot. The exact circumstances of Sikorski's death have been disputed and have given rise to a number of conspiracy theories surrounding the crash and his death. Sikorski had been the most prestigious leader of the Polish exiles, and his death was a severe setback for the Polish cause.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Sikorski