King, C. Daly Obelists at Sea.
Murder and mayhem on an eastbound trans-Atlantic crossing aboard the fictitious liner MEGANAUT. A run-of-the-mill mystery, though enlivened by King’s choice of detectives: four “modern” psychologists en route to a London conference. Each takes a generally futile turn at solving the shipboard crimes. King’s deep felt antagonism towards psychology shines throughout his often mean-spirited text. Along the way the author indulges in loathsome 1930s anti-Semitism as well as general misogyny towards women. King does, however, quite nicely summon up the general feeling of disoriented isolation that liner travel induced in passengers during what is now regarded as the Golden Age of the trans-Atlantic steamship voyage:
“There is a peculiar isolation about a sea trip that clings even to the short, swift ferries across the North Atlantic. The land with its familiar sights, sounds, activities, slips away. These things can still be talked of but no longer experienced; within twenty-four hours they become scarcely more real than one’s childhood, as new faces, new voices, totally different activities replace those left behind. There is an interim, a definite hiatus. For a time the traveller is suspended, as if on a foreign planet; never again, perhaps, will he see his fellow passengers, and the bars of convention (such as are left to us) are dropped by common consent” – pp. 4-5.