The Lusitania Murders
Written by Max Allan Collins
Narrated by Jeff Cummings
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
The Lusitania’s final voyage is a newsman’s dream. First come the torpedo warnings. Then come the murders…
Journalist and mystery writer Willard Huntington Wright boards the Lusitania in pursuit of a hot story. Under the guise of conducting interviews with prominent passengers, his real assignment is to investigate rumors that the luxury liner is carrying illicit cargo for the British war effort against Germany.
But Wright, traveling under the pseudonym S.S. Van Dine, isn’t the only passenger with an ulterior motive. Hours after the ship receives torpedo threats, three German stowaways are found murdered. And Wright suspects the deaths are part of a larger conspiracy. Comparing clues and matching wits with Detective Philomina Vance, the pair must solve the murders before the killer can sabotage the entire ship. Recreating the days up to the ship’s fatal encounter with a German U-boat, The Lusitania Murders is historical fiction at its entertaining best.
Max Allan Collins
MAX ALLAN COLLINS was the Mystery Writers of America (MWA)'s 2017 Grand Master. He is the bestselling author of the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the basis for the hit film starring Tom Hanks. He has won two Shamus Awards, for True Detective and Stolen Away, both from his series of Nathan Heller novels. A prolific writer, Collins' other works include mystery novels, screenplays, comic books, film novelizations, and historical fiction.
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Reviews for The Lusitania Murders
18 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5good cozy, not one of his most likable characters
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is the third of the author's "disaster mystery" series I have read, in which a real life famous amateur sleuth investigates murder against a slightly fictionalised version of a famous disaster scenario. The sleuth this time is the little known Willard Huntington Wright, who wrote under the pseudonym SS Van Dine (which makes him sound like a Dutch steamship!). He investigates murder, theft and German saboteurs aboard the famous liner, sank by German torpedo(es) in May 1915 (in reality he wasn't on the Lusitania's last voyage, though he did travel on it a few months earlier). I didn't particularly care for Van Dine, who came across as more two dimensional than Jacques Futrelle in The Titanic Murders, and the fictional Pinkerton detective Philomena Vance seemed an unlikely figure. The plot was mediocre, and the actual sinking took place in a rather matter of fact way in the last chapter. The real ship took only 18 minutes to sink (compared to the Titanic's 2 hours 40 mins - erroneously stated as 4 hours in a footnote in this novel) and there is controversy over the second explosion that sank the ship - was it a second torpedo or an internal explosion and if so caused by what?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5murder mystery set aboard the Lusitania during her final voyage. Collins mixes historical facts of the voyage and sinking into his story. Journalist Willard Wright, A.K.A S.S. Van Dine is pressed into service to determine what role "Lucy" might play in the war. Engaging story, quick, fun read.