“Who put a bloody lifeboat there?”

That was my maid, Elf, talking. Mind you, calling her a maid is a trifle optimistic.

It’s 1928. Height of the modern age, and here we are, all at sea. Really at sea, because the Victoriana is a state-of-the-art Trans-Atlantic ocean liner, complete with first class service and a menu to die for. (I do like my food. Especially dessert. I’ve always felt sorry for those ladies on the Titanic who passed on dessert…)

Also truly at sea, because there’s a murderer among us and one of those monogrammed kitchen knives has been put to a nefarious use!

I’m Lucy Revelstoke, Lady Revelstoke, if you insist on being correct. (I rarely do.) My beloved husband Johnny died of TB a few years after being gassed at the Somme. It wasn’t fair. He was only 33. Four years later, I’m pulling out of that ocean of grief with the help of my pickpocket-turned-maid, Elf, and this voyage was to be the start of a whole new chapter of my life.

Except nobody expects to open their stateroom door and see a dead body on the floor.

Who is the dead man? And more importantly, why my cabin? Has my past caught up with me?

The truth is, Elf and I have a secret. Before my marriage to Johnny, I had a rather dodgy past. If the mob can have aristocracy, then my Uncle Rocco is the reigning King. This isn’t the life I yearned for. Kings tend to control the lives of their female kin, and I wanted out. So at eighteen, I decided to ditch the family business, sell my late mother’s jewelry, and hop a ship to England, where nobody knows my background. And they still don’t.

Elf and I have worked hard to keep our past lives under wrap. We can’t allow a dead body in our cabin to change that! Especially as I have a young son at school in England, who needs me to stay respectable. Especially since Elf says the fellow on the floor looks like a ‘torpedo’. (That means a hired gun.)

Was he after me? Elf? What the devil is going on?

We have to get rid of the body before authorities find it. And we have a plan – a cunning plan. Wait until nightfall, and then hoist the poor chap out a porthole. Burial at sea, so to speak.

Who could have imagined that it all could go so wrong??

The Merry Widow Murders
Genre: Historical
Release: May 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Lucy Revelstoke, unconventional widow of a young British lord and daughter of a Canadian mobster twice removed, is crossing the Atlantic on a state-of-the-art ocean liner in 1928. Rubbing elbows with the era’s elite and reconnecting with her husband’s aristocratic friend Tony should make for a swell trip. But a dead body dumped in Lucy’s stateroom the first night of the voyage threatens to capsize the new life she’s built for herself.

Who is this dead man? And how did he get into her room?

Together with her pickpocket-turned maid and Tony, Lucy rushes to investigate, just steps ahead of the authorities who will certainly dig too deeply into her dodgy Canadian past.

About the author
Called the “Queen of Comedy” by the Toronto Sun, Melodie Campbell writes capers, heists and golden age mysteries. Winner of ten awards for crime fiction, Melodie has 17 books and over 60 short stories, but she got her start writing stand-up. The Merry Widow Murders was released from Cormorant Books. “The high society flair of Death on the Nile meets a 1920s ocean liner in this sensational cozy mystery from Melodie Campbell.”

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