The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So.

For approximately 9/10ths of the book, I was really happy with everything this book had to offer. Great colorful characters, the feel of the high seas during the early-mid 17th century, and all the conniving, nasty, HUMANS all wiggling around like worms in this awesome closed-room mystery on a ship.

Murder. Old Tom's curse. Mobs, mutiny, and best of all, a truly delightful Samuel Pipps and his trusty Watson... um, I mean Arent... fast on the trail of the mystery.

I honestly, honestly rocked hard to this novel until the end. It had so much charm and promise and even if I felt like I KNEW who the bad guy was, I wanted it to be a genuine red herring. Indeed, one or two MORE twists would have been welcome.

However. The ACTUAL end was a twist that should have been left of the platter. It's fine to hint at it and even tease the reader, but to have something like this be the ACTUAL end... well... I actually rolled my eyes so hard that I poked a hole in one of those ships and it sank.

This is so frustrating. I really wanted to give this a full 5 stars and rave about it. It was SO close.



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