#1956Club: Voyage into Violence

I read this book for the 1956 Club hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings.

Voyage into Violence is the 21st of 26 mysteries featuring Mr. and Mrs. North. Amateur sleuths are not my favorites, but Pam and Jerry North usually work with a New York City homicide detective, Bill Weigand. So the cases are really solved by the police, with their help. It seems that in the ones I have read recently, Pam is the sleuth in the family, but her contribution is often more intuitive than actual sleuthing.

The main characters in this series are very likable. If I remember correctly, Pam and Jerry are directly involved in a murder in the first one, and that is how they meet Bill Weigand. In the early books, Dorian is Bill's girlfriend and the two couples become friends. By the time of this mystery, Bill and Dorian are married and the two couples have gone on a Caribbean cruise together. 

Very shortly, a murder occurs and the Captain of the ship calls in Bill to help out. Dorian is not happy about this at all, but resigned to the inevitability of it all. Pam and Jerry are of course glad to help out.

The people involved in the crimes in these books are usually upper middle class. Jerry North is a book publisher and comparatively well off. Weigand is a police officer, but has money from other sources. And in this case, they are on a cruise, among other people with enough money to take a cruise. Definitely not something my parents were thinking about doing in 1956.

I enjoyed the depiction of a cruise in 1956, and the investigation that ensues when a dead body, clearly murdered, is discovered onboard. The limitations that Weigand has to deal with in his investigation are interesting. Communications between the ship and the mainland was more difficult at that time. 

I noted lots of smoking, in fact the cruise ship has a smoking lounge. And a lot of imbibing of alcohol. In my review of an earlier book in the series, Murder within Murder, I compared Pam and Jerry to Nick and Nora Charles, although that is only in relation to their drinking and the light tone of the stories. Nick Charles is clearly a sleuth where Jerry North is more in a supporting role, especially in this novel. The novels about the Norths are light, with humor, but not laugh out loud funny.

There are lots of interesting passengers on the cruise: a group called the Ancient and Respectable Riflemen, led by Captain Folsom; a well-known private investigator, now retired, J. Orville Marsh; Olivia Macklin, traveling with her daughter. And all of these people seem slightly shady to me.

I read a good number of the Mr. and Mrs North books decades ago and enjoyed them. Of course, at the time I was reading them, they were not set so far in the past; these books may not appeal to younger mystery readers.

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Publisher:   J. B. Lippincott, 1956
Length:       191 pages
Format:       Hardcover 

                  (book club edition)
Series:        Mr. & Mrs. North, #21
Setting:       On a Caribbean cruise.
Genre:        Mystery
Source:       I purchased my copies.