Buried at Sea by Chas Finch

Buried at Sea is sort of from the middle of the excellent Charles Lenox (Victorian PI) series, which I have been reading totally out of order. In the last one I read (which was the newest, and a prequel), our hero was single, in his 20s, and just starting out as a PI. In this one, he's in his 40s, married, and a member of Parliament (and I must find some of the intervening books to see how that happened!). His brother Edmund, who is very high up in the government, asks Charles to go to Egypt on a secret government mission involving the Suez Canal. Although he's reluctant to leave his pregnant wife, Charles agrees and sets sail. Most of the book is indeed set on the ship--where one of the crew is brutally murdered shortly after they set sail. And Charles is called upon to brush off his detecting skills.

I love this series but this was not my favorite. I felt like I was reading Two Years Before the Mast at times, there was so much ship talk. But the murder mystery itself was interesting. As was the "spy" part near the end of the book. And I was happy to see that Charles did finally find true love, though I have clearly missed the book where it happened.