Cruise of a Death Time — Marian Babson

CROSS THE OCEAN BLUE.
IF YOU CAN GET THERE ALIVE.

Welcome to the Empress Josephine and a transoceanic experience of good food, lavish entertainment, fun, and surprises--lots of surprises. The first comes when a key officer fails to make the sailing. Next, two suicides are discovered at once, followed by three recumbent corpses by the skeet-shooting area. One on the first day, two on the second, three on the third: the pattern is all too frighteningly clear. But who is committing murder on the bounding main? While the crew struggles to maintain decorum and passengers keep turning up missing, the killer suddenly issues a chilling demand. With the ship's radio smashed and a civil war engulfing the port of destination, the crew and passengers have no choice but to do as they are told, as their cruise of a lifetime turns into a titanic trip of death.