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Title: Southern Cross

Author: T. C. Isbell

Narrator: Paul Fleschner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-23-14

Publisher: Thomas Isbell III

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Not the typical spy murder mystery, Southern Cross is a unique tale of double agents, espionage, revenge, and murder leading investigators from a morgue in Manhattan to the SS Southern Cross, a passenger liner sailing from New York to Cuba. Forced to use limited resources, a doctor from San Francisco and a young Paris police inspector scramble to uncover a vicious murderer before another passenger is killed, and before the ship docks in Havana and 500 travelers flood the pier.

Members Reviews:

A Compelling Spy Novel With a Zig & a Zag & a Zing!.

I was hooked from the moment I opened the cover. Any spy story that opens with telegrams is just going to be good. I particularly liked T. C. Isbell's use of colorful adjectives, consistently causing the reader to really envision the settings, the characters and the scenes. It was like going back in time to the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII.

Isbell's writing style alone is enough to keep one reading, but the story-line he creates is intense, exciting and fast-paced. The way he opens new chapters sort of "re-hooks" you back into the tale over and over again. IE: The first two paragraphs of Chapter 7 & the image of the old motor lodge, the Indian going up and down on the pole, the big rigs straining to make it up the steep grade... all draw images that compel one to read on.

The ending is very unexpected and you'll want to read every word right up to it and then more. Thank goodness his follow up novel, Icarus Plot, is right around the corner!

All in all a very good read that is dotted throughout with historically accurate events and phrases.

I loved it.

Médiocre

For a supposedly historical novel, this thing contains a lot of anachronisms that are extremely annoying as you read. The main German agent, for instance, is des robes as a serial killer, a concept that didn't even exist at the time. People are avid consumers of caffeine and nicotine, when those compounds had not yet been commonly associated with coffee and cigarettes. Likewise, the language used is completely modern. Finally, the mystery had the fatal flaw of being obvious from beginning to end, including the "twist" ending.

Page Turning Fun Read.

If you like stories of action, suspense, espianage, that surround the coming of World War II, this novel is for you.

The time is 1938/39 when the USA is finally emerging from the Great Depression and Germany is beating the war drums in Europe. War is inevitable and spies from Great Britain, Germany and other countries are jockeying for position to keep their countries one step ahead of their potential enemies.

The story's major character is Chris Schulte, German agent and rogue serial killer. Schulte travels to the USA by U-boat on a mission that is suppose to eventually end in Brazil. Along the way, several British agents are murdered in the States. As a result, the FBI winds up getting sucked into the chase. When they discover Schulte has boarded the ocean liner, Southern Cross, in New York which sails to Havana, Cuba, they know the killer has be found before the ship arrives in that country. The trouble is the rogue killer is also a master of disguises.

It is at this point, while aboard ship, a most unlikely team of investigators evolves.