Louise’s Crossing (A Louise Pearlie Mystery)
Louise’s Crossing is the seventh in Shaber’s mystery series featuring Louise Pearlie, a widow stationed in Washington, DC, working for the OSS during World War II. In this outing, she’s been transferred to London, so almost the entire book takes place on the crossing to England, on the SS Amelia Earhart in February 1944. The ship wasn’t designed as a passenger ship, so although it carries a small group of civilians, its cargo is primarily wartime vehicles and artillery. It’s a motley crew of civilians sailing with Louise: a British widow returning home, a Dutch family, a salesman for the American Rubber Company, a nurse, and an Irishman returning to the homeland to retire. Days into their journey, Grace Bell, the African American ship’s stewardess, is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, in what looks like an accident. Louise’s OSS training kicks in, and she believes Grace was murdered.
Shaber has expertly captured the ship’s claustrophobic atmosphere with the added tension of fear of attack by German submarines. Louise is dismissed by the ship’s master as a hysterical female, and conditions are primitive, with freezing cabins and canned food. Wartime privations make people desperate, and Louise must figure out who has the most to lose. The strengths of the story are its setting and characters. I could feel how cold, scared, and uncomfortable Louise was on this ship, but also how she had become emboldened by her war work to be assured of her capabilities and press on with her investigation. She’s a character worth following, so I’ll look for her earlier adventures and look forward to the next.
