Nothing will bring Dad back. But I’ve done what I can to avenge his death, and I’ve inherited all the money which should have been mine anyway. Dad, you always said I could do anything I want. I hope I’ve made you proud. I’m living the kind of life I imagine you’d have always hoped for me to have, and I’ve killed everyone who had a hand in your death.

Rest in Peace.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, many thanks to my agent Gaia Banks for not only taking me on all those years ago but really going beyond the call of duty with this one by taking my fretful plotting calls during your maternity leave. As usual you have been a huge help at all stages of the book and I really appreciate it. Also to my incredible editor Phoebe Morgan for your incredible positivity, patience and generosity with your time, as well as making my books much better than they would have been without your input.

Living on a hill in the middle of nowhere I spend a lot of time online – thanks to all my online friends who find they have to get involved with questions about everything from the use of capital letters to help with character names. Special thanks to Steff Gray for the ship’s name, and the people of the Facebook groups Ships in Torbay and Lyme Bay, and Cruise Ships in Torbay and Lyme Bay for their help with various queries and also simply for being such a haven of calm on social media. Life on board Immanis is a mix of research and total invention and any anomalies and mistakes are, of course, my own.

Many thanks to my (again mainly online) writer friends (I am SO looking forward to finally meeting some of you this year!) who are such a great support, especially Sarah Clarke for coming up with an idea for a plot point which really helped A LOT. Thank you also to beta readers Hannah Parry, Emma Haughton, Eve Ainsworth, Claire Seeber and Jackie Wesley who read the book at various stages and all helped to shape it in some way or another. I hope you approve of how it turned out!

Thanks to Graham Bartlett @gbpoliceadvisor for reassuring me over another plot panic so quickly and to all the many writers who recommended him when I was having said panic.

Thank you to Stu Cummins, not only for being such as supportive and enthusiastic reader and reviewer, but also for bidding very generously in the Books for Vaccines auction in aid of Care UK to name a character in The Cruise. Thank you also for putting up with my over-zealous checking that you didn’t mind if he came to a gruesome end!