Death on the Mississippi

Mark Twain Mysteries, Book 1

By: Peter J. Heck

Narrated by: Will Damron

There was a ghastly murder in New York City, and Mark Twain’s address was in the dead man’s pocket. But even more alarming was that Twain had just received a message sent by an old friend from his riverboat days - and the handwriting matched the note found on the corpse.

So with his new secretary, Wentworth Cabot, Twain caught a steamboat bound for New Orleans. On board were all matter of people - wealthy tourists and old river rats, literary amateurs and high-stakes gamblers...and a determined killer whose only goal was to bring Mark Twain’s celebrated career to a stop!

©1995 Peter J. Heck (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

A Fun Mystery with "Twain"

Recommended to me by my brother, I was skeptical I would like it but I really enjoyed it. The author did a good job of keeping in the 'spirit' of what Mark Twain's personality and life would be like. Other reviews say it was an obvious villain but not only did I not think that, I felt 'Twain' made the leap from clues that appeared to be pointing one way to finding an entirely different villain, but at least the thought process was explained afterward. Listened on audible and the reader does a great job with the characters and tempo/pace of the reading.

DNF

I love Mark Twain and have all my life. If he had a fault, it was being sometimes over-wordy. But he was also witty and could tell a story and inform us along with it. Heck is wordy, and long-winded, but lacks the wit that makes up for it. There’s probably a story in there somewhere, but I just couldn’t hang in there long enough to get to it. And even for a hundred years ago, I just found the idea of a NYC policeman leaving his jurisdiction and anyone acceding to his authority in entirely other states too implausible. The narrator has a pleasant voice and dealt with the accents well enough, but all that folksiness without any wit to go along with it got to me and ultimately led to my DNF.