A ground-breaking – well, air-breaking new travel holiday. Flying by airship into the Arctic circle. It would be the trip of the lifetime – and it’s environmentally friendly and perfectly safe, as it is full of helium, rather than flammable hydrogen. If the trial run goes well, then it will be the ticket that everyone will want. IF the trial run goes well…

With the ship full of crew, travel bloggers, friends of the owner and others, the journey starts well, until an “accident” causes a helium leak in a cabin and the occupant suffocates… Well, when I say “accident”…

I’ve very divided on this one, as indeed I have been on most of Tom Hindle’s books. So I should say, if you loved those unconditionally, as a lot of people seem to, then just ignore this review.

Let’s concentrate on the good points. First of all, it’s a proper locked room mystery – there’s a dressing gown wedged under the cabin door from the inside. It reminded me a tad of Carter Dickson’s He Wouldn’t Kill Patience, although the gown isn’t causing a seal. The construction of the plot and the cluing is all there with the villain’s plan making a reasonable amount of sense. I’ve a concern or two about the science involved, as I’m not sure how much helium you’d need in the room to suffocate someone – is it enough to be safely dispersed by opening a door? – but that isn’t important. There’s an effective finale too.

Also, the world-building here, namely that of a helium airship holiday business, is impeccably done. It’s nonsense in reality, not least because of the amount of helium it would need, but you’ll almost be conviced.

However I do have two gripes. As with the other books, there is a large cast of characters and I did feel this time that some of them were just… there. Not red herrings, not a cog in the plot, just… there. On more than one occasion I had to flick back to remind myself who was who. By moving the focus around, it does take a while to establish who the sleuth is (unless you read the blurb) which I thought was a nice idea, but it does take a while, to be honest, for much to happen at all. The murder is at the halfway point in the tale, but there’s not that much going on, criminally speaking, before that.

But the bigger crime is that Captain Obvious is back again. Hindle is playing a “who would want to kill him?” game as there’s not much motive from any character on display. But the actual motive (and ergo the actual murderer) is very guessable (and I guessed it the first time we were given relevant information). Plaudits for including the information so that the reader can work it out – Hindle’s books are all pretty well clued – but as with the previous titles, I don’t think the experienced armchair detective will miss it. As I said, the villain’s plot is well-thought-out and even makes some sort of sense (as much as evil plans do) so Hindle to be praised for that element of the plotting.

So, as I said, I’m divided. If you’re unsure and have read the earlier titles, take a look at my reviews of The Murder Game or Murder On Lake Garda and see if you disagree with me. Most people on NetGalley seem to love this unconditionally, so maybe I’m in the minority here…

Death In The Arctic is out this Thursday from Penguin. Many thanks for the review e-copy in return for an honest review.