Murder Challenges Valcour in the Lesser Antilles Case by Rufus King

Wealthy Lawrence Thacker had purchased a yacht, the Helsinor, and had taken friends and family on a cruise to South America and the Caribbean. When the yacht struck a reef, and quickly sank, many of the thirty two on board went down the boat. There were 10 who made it into a lifeboat, and were headed toward an island. This party included Lawrence Thacker, his cousin Erica Land, her aunt, Miss Whitestone, Philip Hasbrook who was another cousin, Edmund Gateshead, a good friend of Thacker, and Lilian Ash, a numerologist. Also in the lifeboat were Oscar Baron and Sarah Gorin who were servants, and Wesley Paget, the first officer and Leighton Klein, the third mate.

They arrived at the island which was barren and which did not seem to have a source of fresh water. They decided to get back in the lifeboat and look for a better place. They took along a container of the drinking water from the yacht which was all of the water that they had. Along the way, they each has a small drink of water and in the heat, they all went to sleep. When they woke up, they discovered that Lawrence Thacker and Leighton Klein were no longer in the boat. The final decision was that they had fallen asleep and fell over the side.

Life went on after they arrived back in New York. Lieutenant Valcour of the New York Police department was assigned to try to find out what had happened to Thacker and Klein. There was a memorial service for the lost men and then there was a reading of Lawrence Thacker's will. Erika Land and Philip Hasbrook received quite a significant amount of money. Lilian Ash, the numerologist received one hundred thousand dollars. Lawrence Thacker had become quite interested in numerology, and Miss Ash would become a real pain in the neck of the family members. Then everyone was shocked when Edmund Gateshead was poisoned and died at a wake that he was giving for the missing men.

Valcour would solve the mystery after Miss Whitestone purchased a similar yacht, and all of the suspects took another cruise to the spot where the Helsinor sank. A diver was hired to go down and search the sunken vessel for further clues which explains the cover of this book.

This book was published in 1934. Rufus King was an American mystery writer.Though he had several detectives in his books, Inspector Valcour who appeared in 11 books was the most popular with readers. I cannot say that I was impressed with Valcour. He was a pleasant, polite detective who got along with everyone, but his detecting skills were not impressive.