A cruise ship arrives at a tiny Caribbean island with a murdered crew member on board. Can the crime be solved before the killer strikes again?

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A cruise ship arrives at a tiny Caribbean island with a murdered crew member on board. Retired Ottawa police inspector Mike Reilly, already vacationing on the island, suddenly finds he must try to solve the crime before the killer strikes again. Here’s an excerpt from Ottawa novelist Randall Denley’s new murder mystery, Changes in Latitude:

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CHAPTER ONE:

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James leaned over the rail of the slow-moving cruise ship as it slid through the moonlit Caribbean night, its engines churning noisily, leaving a white wake in the calm waters. He had a scotch neat in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Those were two things he really should give up. The smoking was starting to affect his singing and the drinking was hurting his looks. Little broken blood vessels had started to appear on his cheeks. Stage makeup covered them nicely, but he knew they were there. He was only 33, but he was already on the down slope, looks fading and career stalled.

Tonight’s performance had been particularly ghastly. It had been a medley of Broadway show tunes, normally his favourite set, the one where they introduced him as being “straight from Broadway.” Broadway was now six years in the past and he’d never made it out of the chorus, but it was still miles ahead of being the “star” on a B-level cruise ship.

The problem tonight had been the dancers. The timing for costume changes was tight, but that was no excuse for missing their cues. Amber Ferguson had rushed on stage, then fallen down just as he was launching into Maria from West Side Story. Amber’s pratfall had caused the audience to laugh and the orchestra had stopped playing. James had tried to cover for her by rushing over and helping her to her feet, turning it into a romantic gesture, but everyone knew it was a gaffe.

He had performed on a lot of ships, but never one with such a pathetic cast of entertainers; short, awkward female dancers, big, clumsy male singers with all the subtlety of a ship’s horn, at least half the orchestra was stoned on any given night.

Everything about the Caledonia was second rate. The........

© Ottawa Citizen