Thriller set in CORK and in the MEDITERRANEAN (cruise-ship)

• Book: Distress Signals
• Location: County Cork, The Mediterranean
• Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Review Author: tripfiction

This review first appeared on our blog, where we also talk to the author.

A tightly plotted debut thriller that glides from Cork and on to a cruise liner ploughing the Mediterrranean waters between Barcelona and Villefranche (for Nice).

Adam and Sarah seem happy enough, and have been together for 10 years. Sarah announces that she is due attend a work conference in Barcelona, and Adam takes her to the airport. Her absence will provide him with plenty of time to work on the Hollywood screenplay which is looming, and through which his star will rise. But time is short and pressured. A perfect opportunity to get stuck in to the project.

A confirmatory text that Sarah has arrived, he thinks nothing of the fact that she is on radio silence thereafter….. at first, that is. But soon his disquiet grows, especially when he hears that her parents have heard nothing and that at work she has called in sick. The facts do not match the story she has told him, although to begin with he is not unduly worried. She is – as the Garda (police) in Cork tell him – a grown woman, and further, of all notified missing persons, it is only a tiny percentage that disappears forever. He, however, is not convinced.

Through Sarah’s best friend Rose, he learns of very unwelcome news, which not only upsets him but further unsettles him. As time passes, he starts to delve into the internet, and becomes increasingly alarmed by the connections he starts to make, sufficient for him to head for Barcelona and book himself onto the same cruise-ship, the Celebrate, on which Sarah seems to have been.

This is a good thriller, where the storyline is in part built on aspects of maritime law, which is fascinating. For example, any crime committed on a ship is investigated by the police force where the ship is registered, in this case Barbados; unless the victim involved is American, in which case the FBI comes hurtling in.

I certainly found this to be very readable and hard to put down. If I had one minor quibble it was that I felt the ending wasn’t as tightly plotted as the main body of the story, and meandered a little.

Will you risk reading this thriller, set on a cruise-ship, if you are about to embark on cruise holiday on the high seas??

Back to book