Murder on the Titanic by Jim Walker seems to be another of those books published in the wake of Cameron's film (1998), another murder mystery set on the famous and ill-fated Titanic. This assumption that the book was rushed through to publication gains some credence by some glaring discrepancies in the plot: The story's hero, Morgan Fairfield, first participates in dangling one of the villains, an Irish steerage passenger named O'Connor, over the side of the ship. Only an hour or so later, he seems to have never seen the man.
On closer inspection, however (as a matter of fact, reading the introduction is enough), the actual aim of the story, what the author really cares about and wants to convey to his audience is neither the story of the Titanic nor the thrill and suspense of a murder mystery but a morality play on the need of man to put his faith in god, the Christian God that is. Not a surprising sentiment in a man who is a senior pastor with the Evangelical Free Church and has written books such as Husbands who won't Lead and Wives who won't Follow. (My first reaction to these titles was: He's kiddin, isn't he?)
This is not the first nor will it be the last time the story of the Titanic is used to symbolise the hubris of mankind and the consequence of an inevitable disastrous downfall. In fact, there is hardly any retelling of the tale that does not, at least in passing, make a reference to this. Somebody is bound to say 'God himself could not sink this ship.' Again, given the name of the ship and its origins, the Titans who rebelled against the Gods and were severely punished for it, this is hardly surprising.
In Murder on the Titanic the consequences of thinking to high of mankind's achievements is spelled out expressly. (Fictional) Reverend James Rosscup reports having overheard somebody state that 'Not even God could sink this ship', which, according to him is bad, because 'It's a dangerous thing to tempt God.' Which, to me, sounds very old-testamenty.
Since the moral of the story is to instil in the readers the urge to life their lives according to Christian values (something it completely failed to do in my case, but then I am a hardened agnostic), it is not surprising that the author did not try very hard to describe the journey of the Titanic as authentically as possible. No doubt, Mr Walker has done some research on the subject, but of a rather fragmented and cursory nature. The books contains quite a number of correct details from from the stoker climbing the fourth (dummy) funnel, giving several people quite a fright when his head appeared on top of the funnel in Queenstown, to details of Lightoller's previous career.
However, reading up these facts seems to have no other reason than to add some authenticity to the book and not stem from the desire to actually find out the historical facts. There are so many gross and needless mistakes in the story that it cannot be excused by arguing that it would have been too difficult to find out the facts.
These mistakes start from smallish ones, e.g., that women are described as having bobbed hair (in 1912!) to errors that may be explained by carelessness, when for example the colour of the hair and the eyes of a woman in a photograph are described (again I want to say in 1912!).
But the book contains some really gross mistakes, too. The most glaring mistake is the reason behind the plot to blow a hole in the Titanic and sink her. (Just as happened in Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Tragedy and in Titanic. Adventure out of Time). This act of terrorism is allegedly planned by the IRA.
The problem is: the IRA as a paramilitary organisation did not exist in 1912. It was established only after the Easter Rising of 1916. (When Paidrig Pearse used the phrase 'Irish Republican Army' he was a) referring to the participants of the Easter Rising not a secret organisation and b) the British Officer he talked to had not heard the phrase before.) Moreover, while there is a continuous tradition of 'physical force' politics in Irish History, 1912 was a very quiet time. In fact, it seemed that it would be possible to achieve the goal of Irish Independence by constitutional means and in 1914 Home Rule was almost achieved.
The author seems to have had just the patience to check out details of the ship's voyage and the events surrounding the collision with the iceberg. He seems to have thought it to suffice to find the names of a few of the officers (and in Lightoller's case make a note of some of his more picturesque aspects of his past), so it is not surprising to find the officers on or off duty at all the wrong hours and their duties (as usual) consisting more of dealing with passengers than actually running the ship. (It is even mentioned that there is an officer making sure steerage passengers do not trespass into second or first class areas, but one can assume that as many actual passengers, the hero of the story mistakes a steward for an officers.)
Until Moody and Wilde make an appearance very late in the story, there are only three officers present, Murdoch, Lightoller and Boxhall. Walker has also assigned them particular characteristics, Mr Ambitious (one cannot help but wonder whether this has no deeper reason than Lightoller calling him an 'ambitious fellow' in A Night to Remember), Mr Bewildered, and Mr Right. Mr Walker has taken quite a shine to Boxhall who is the only officer who acts correctly.
It is therefore hardly a surprise that Mr Walker did not bother to find out what the name of either the ship's surgeons or that of the Chief Engineer was. Both, or rather all three, names are really not difficult to find out. Nevertheless, instead of William O'Laughlin, the senior surgeon or Edward Simpson, the junior surgeon, there is a Dr McCoy, whose first name we never learn. The Chief Engineer in this novel is called Nordstrom not Bell. Interestingly, much later in the story, we encounter a man who introduces himself as 'Eric Nordstrom, a stoker'. Are we to believe that there are two men called Nordstrom on board, when in reality there was not a single one of this name aboard? Or is this another case of a book that would have needed much more vigorous proof-reading?
It is true that the author stresses in the introduction that this is a fictional story, but I just cannot see the reason why he could not have used the real people's names. After all neither Dr McCoy nor Chief Engineer Nordstrom are involved in a crime or depicted as particularly useless in the story.
If I find it hard to understand this needless change of names, what really flabbergasts me is that Mr Walker has the nerve - or naivité, not to use a stronger word - to claim in the introduction's list of characters that Kitty Webb was a historical character and the mistress of Benjamin Guggenheim. Guggenheim's mistress was called Madame Léontine Pauline Aubart who was a singer from Paris. Guggenheim did not pull her out of a chorus line in New York. Nor did they share a cabin, as Guggenheim and Kitty Webb do in the novel.
Since it is implied that Kitty Webb murdered or engineered the murder of the her former lover Hunter Kennedy one could assume that the author did not want to accuse a historical person of murder, though why he should then insist she was a historical character is a mystery. Additionally, he has no compunction to claim that J. Bruce Ismay had killed a young woman (Hunter Kennedy's sister) in a drink driving accident.
In addition to his aim to further Christian values, the author also 'takes the opportunity to advance several theories that spotlight the events that led to the sinking, at least one of which may have prevented the great loss of life,' as he states in the introduction. One of these theories, that the Titanic would not have sunk if she had hit the iceberg head on, is only mentioned in passing. Apart from the fact that a head on collision would have instantly killed several hundred people, a fact not mentioned in the novel, it is far from certain whether this manoeuvre would have saved the ship.
The second theory, presumably the one when implemented would have prevented the great loss of life, is that if the watertight doors had been opened the ship would have flooded evenly and would have stayed afloat longer. Again, it is highly doubtful that flooding the ship deliberately would have slowed the sinking. Additionally, this course of action would have meant the almost immediate loss of power and therefore light, a fact that is mentioned but dismissed as unimportant in the book. However, it would have been near impossible to load and lower the life-boats in pitch darkness. Chaos and panic would have been the immediate result of a black-out.
What is particularly irritating is that this course of action is advocated by Jack Kelly, an Irish steerage passenger. The fact that Kelly, a builder of small wooden fishing vessels, should know better how to stop the Titanic from sinking than Thomas Andrews and the ship-yard's guarantee group or anybody else who had experience with running ships of this size is an arrogant and insulting assumption.
The author is at great pains to depict a ship riven with incompetence (with the notable exception of 4th Officer Boxhall), and while mistakes were made (otherwise they would not have hit the iceberg after all) it is the kind of armchair leadership that is really annoying. Particularly coming from a man who knows not a great deal about the events or how a ship like the Titanic was run. There are too many instances, in addition to the one's already mentioned, to list here. To name but one, when casting off in Southampton, Boxhall is described at being at the ship's wheel and giving orders. Boxhall would not be at the wheel, that's the place of a quartermaster, as junior officer he would not be giving orders (except in emergencies, e.g. if all the senior officers had died), and at this point, a pilot would be in command of the ship.
Mr Walker also makes a great deal about the fact that 'nobody knows how to handle a ship of this size', which is obviously complete nonsense, since the Titanic's elder sister Olympic was in service for a year at the time and the Captain as well as Chief Officer Wilde and First Officer Murdoch had made the Atlantic crossing on her several times, which is the reason why they were put in command of the Titanic.
To sum up, the novel is so full of inaccuracies and mistakes that the presence of two fictional crew members, Dr McCoy and Chief Engineer Nordstrom, hardly warrant a comment. It seems that the author was so keen to write his morality play and the publishers to get it out as quickly as possible that not only the factual errors but the mistakes in the plot were not noticed or ignored.
It could be argued that the historical details hardly matter in a story of this kind and that it is fiction after all. In that case, if the historical events are unimportant, I would advise to set the story on a fictional ship altogether. But then, Murder on the Romantic (or whatever) would hardly sell as good as a story set on the Titanic.
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