Peril on the Atlantic

Twelve-year old Alice is delighted when she is allowed to accompany her Staff Captain father on his ship, the Queen Mary, in 1936, and she meets a couple of the younger crew members as she waits for him on the docks at Southampton, but she is less pleased when she is given some books that are too young for her and he orders her to remain in a very restricted area. Undaunted, this adventurous girl bends her father’s rules, and is soon involved in finding out why a crew member was beaten up, making some good friends among the crew and fellow passengers: they are soon a team of two boys and two girls. She soon finds that she is not the only person bending rules and keeping secrets, and her father’s ambition to win the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing almost becomes an obsession, but there is a saboteur on board, connected with a rival shipping line. The plots are interwoven and also lead her to discovering more about the mother who died when she was a baby; the story ends with her finding more members of her family than when the voyage began. We are promised more adventures with her new family, and the first part of the next book is given at the end of this one.

Life aboard an ocean liner in the 1930s was very glamorous, and most of the passengers were very rich: it’s interesting to note the differences from the cruise ships of today. Stewardess Pearl, who looks after Alice and her father, had survived the sinking of the Titanic, and Alice becomes well aware of the hazards of sea travel at the time. It’s an exciting story, with treachery, secrets and danger, but all is well in the end. A M Howell is the award-winning author of The House of One Hundred Clocks, and The Garden of Lost Secrets, based on an old National Trust gardener’s notebook, and is evidently one to watch.