REVIEW: The Lusitania Murders

The Lusitania Murders
Author: Max Allan Collins

The Lusitania Murders is the 4th novel in The Disaster Series. In each book, Max Allan Collins expertly wraps a historical disaster with a fictional murder investigation, sending a famous person scrambling to solve the crime before all hell breaks loose. Previous stories have been aboard the Titanic on its fateful maiden voyage, the Hindenberg before it exploded, and at Pearl Harbor on that day of infamy. The stories do not trivialize the real loss of life in these historical events. Facts are given about the real events, and the fictional investigation is woven in among the true occurrences. Collins' detectives for this series so far have been Jacques Futrelle, Leslie Charteris, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and in this 4th book in the series -- S.S. Van Dine (aka Willard Huntington Wright).

Willard Huntington Wright started his writing career as literary editor for the LA Times. He also wrote short stories, pieces on philosophy, book reviews, and art critiques. In the 1920s, he was quite famous in intellectual circles.  Following a downturn in his health and finances later in life, he began writing detective stories. He published these under the S.S. Van Dine pseudonym out of embarrassment at his drop from intellectual writing to pulp fiction. His detective novels featured Philo Vance, a genius New Yorker and a bit of a dandy who uses his ingenuity to solve crimes. From 1926 to 1939, 12 books were published featuring Philo Vance.

William Huntington Wright, as painted by his brother

In The Lusitania Murders, S.S. Van Dine is a passenger on the fated ship. He meets a female version of his fictional famous detective, Philomena Vance, on board. As a female Pinkerton agent, she is acting as the ship's detective. While on a tour of the ship, 3 German stowaways are discovered. They are locked in the brig so that they can be questioned. Vance suspects they may have been on board to commit sabotage, perhaps hiding pipe bombs to damage the ship. Before much can be gleaned about their plans, the stowaways are murdered. Van Dine and Vance suspect that a member of the crew or perhaps even a passenger may have been the mastermind behind whatever the nefarious plans might have been. They investigate the case, not knowing that the ship is going to be torpedoed by a German U-Boat and sink. Why were the Germans onboard? What was their plan? And who was helping them? The two of them rush to investigate before any planted bombs might explode, not realizing the ship's fate is already sealed.

I listened to the audiobook version of this story by Brilliance Audio. Jeff Cummings narrates. I have partial hearing loss, but had no trouble understanding Cummings. He reads at a good pace and has a pleasant voice. Male narrators sometimes try a bit too hard when voicing female characters, but Cummings did a good job, just slightly changing his pitch when reading Philomena Vance's conversation. All in all, a nice audio experience.

The story started off a bit slow for me, but when the real action started to kick in, I was hooked. I liked Collins' use of a female version of the author's actual detective character as a main character in the story. There was slightly less factual information woven into this tale than in the prior 3 books in this series. Most likely this is because of the controversy, conspiracy theories and doubt that still surround the sinking of the Lusitania even today. For decades, the British government swore that no munitions were aboard the ship and that the Germans sank it without provocation.  When the wreck was discovered and investigated, it was proven that the passenger ship was carrying munitions. This was only guessed at previously, as there were reportedly two explosions on board the ship. The first was caused by a German torpedo, followed by a second stronger explosion. Theories pointed at this second explosion as detonation of munitions within the cargo holds. Whatever the cause of the sinking, 1,198 passengers and crew members died.

Collins does a great job once again of combining fact and fiction. This time, he even mixes real people with fictional characters, teaming S.S. Van Dine with a female version of detective Philo Vance. The story also works in the fact that Van Dine was a pen name, and the author had previously been a literary and art critic. Nicely done!

Although not my favorite in the series so far, The Lusitania Murders is an interesting story. Despite a bit of a slow start, the story gained steam and had a nice, steady suspenseful pace til the surprising end. The author ends his tale with a bit of an epilogue, explaining a bit about which characters were real and fictionalized, and about some of the theories on the sinking.

I definitely would like to read the detective novels by S.S. Van Dine now! Because the stories are in the public domain, 11 of the 12 Philo Vance books are available here (in several formats): http://www.fadedpage.com/csearch.php?author=Wright,%20Willard%20Huntington  The 9th novel, The Garden Murder Case, is available in ebook format at several online booksellers.

Max Allan Collins is an award winning author and has written many books about detectives and criminal investigations including several CSI stories and the Nathan Heller series. For more information about the author and his books, check out his website at: http://www.maxallancollins.com/blog/