Newly out of the hospital and totally out of funds, young Ralph Leslie longs for a long sea voyage. So he jumps at the chance to sign aboard millionaire Marshall Turner's luxurious super-yacht as steward to the passengers lodged in its after house. His job is easy sailing-until, one sultry summer night, the dream voyage suddenly becomes a nightmare of blood and terror.
One ship's officer is thrown overboard. Another is hacked to death with an axe. The killer strikes again and again, and theElla is awash in a wave of panic that engulfs passengers and crew alike. Only one hand aboard-ex-landlubber Leslie-seems enough in control to stay the bloody hand of the murderer. But he'll have to stay alive to do it-and that isn't going to be easy!
Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a novelist and playwright best known for her mystery stories that combined humor with ingenuity. The success of her novels, The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909), established her reputation as an important American mystery writer, and at one time she was the highest paid writer in America. In addition to mysteries, she wrote comic tales, plays, romances, and travel books, some of which reflected her experiences as a war correspondent during World War I. One critic called her autobiography, My Story (1931), her finest book.
