I really enjoyed Stuart Turton’s first novel, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. If you like murder mysteries, I highly recommend it. It is set in the 1920s at a country manor and is about a man who has eight days to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, the heiress of the family that owns the manor, the twist being that he wakes up each day in a different body of the guests and servants at manor. It is a highly original novel, which does take a strange turn towards the end, but it is still good. The Devil and the Dark Water is Turton’s second novel, and I had been looking forward to reading it. It is not as original as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, but it is a worthy follow up.

The Devil and the Dark Water is set in 1634 and mostly takes place on a merchant ship called the Saardam sailing from Batavia (in present day Indonesia) to Amsterdam. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was inspired by Agatha Christie while The Devil and the Dark Water takes its inspiration from Sherlock Holmes. One of the characters in the novel is renowned detective, Samuel Pipps, who has been arrested and is being taken back to Amsterdam to face execution. Pipps is clever at solving crimes and notices details that other people overlook, but since he is imprisoned in a tiny cell on the Saardam, it becomes his bodyguard’s responsibility to start investigating when strange things start happening on the ship. Arent Hayes, the bodyguard, is the opposite of Dr. Watson; he is a very capable investigator (even if he does not think so) but he is also incredibly big and strong.

The strange things that happen on the Saardam begin even before the ship leaves the harbour: on the dock, a mute leper calls out a warning to the passengers of the Saardam before he bursts into flames and burns to death, and when the sail is unfurled, it is discovered that someone has covered it in a strange symbol. Shortly after the ship begins its journey, all the livestock on board are mysteriously slaughtered, important cargo is stolen from a guarded, locked room, and the supposedly dead leper appears on the ship. All these portents suggest that a devil called Old Tom is on the ship. But is it really a supernatural presence that is causing murder and mayhem on the ship, or is there a more rational and human explanation, as Pipps insists? This novel kept me guessing until the very end. You must pay a lot of attention to the details when reading The Devil and the Dark Water if you want to solve the mystery before, in true Sherlockian fashion, everything is explained.

What I liked best about The Devil and the Dark Water, though, was the setting and the characters. Setting the novel almost entirely on a 17th century ship does not at all constrain the story. I found it fascinating to learn about life aboard a ship, and the ship adds to the tense and foreboding atmosphere of the story, from the dark, gloomy and very wet cargo hold to the crew’s side of the ship that is off limits to the passengers as it is a lawless area where the crew can do anything they want.

Even though this novel appears to be about Samuel Pipps and Arent Hayes, women play an important part of the story, especially Sara Wessel, the noblewoman who bucks societal conventions and works with Arent to solve the mystery of Old Tom, even if it means facing her abusive husband’s wrath.

Old Tom may have gotten everyone on the Saardam riled up, but The Devil and the Dark Water provides another example of how the real monsters in this world are the humans that live in it. I enjoyed reading this novel and look forward to reading whatever story Turton comes up with next.