Unholy miracles, murder, and mass chaos are promised and seem to be inevitable and with Pipps imprisoned, it is up to Arent and Sara to figure out the truth. It appears that the Saardam and those on board are being haunted by a devil called Old Tom. Yet he is later seen on board the ship and quickly mysteries sprout up.

Arent is completely loyal to Pipps, a rougher type of Watson, a former mercenary and physical huge.īefore the Saardam leaves dock, a leper casts a terrifying prophecy over the ship and then seems to self-immolate. Pipps is a sort of Sherlock character, able to deduce a bounty of information from the smallest of details. Pipps is imprisoned in a dark cell on this voyage though, manacled for a crime unknown to either himself or Arent. We follow a myriad of characters, including Sara, Haan’s spirited wife, and Arent Hayes, bodyguard to the brilliant detective Samuel Pipps. None of that mattered much because the story as it is told is fast-paced and engaging. Some of this is based in historical fact but in his afterword Turton freely acknowledges that he has not stuck fast to fact.

The ship belongs to The Company and is under control by Jan Haan, the governor-general of Batavia, travelling to Amsterdam to join the powerful group called the Gentleman 17. Most of the action takes place on board a ship called the Saardam, travelling from Batavia (modern day Indonesia) to Amsterdam in the 17th Century. Historical fiction, mystery novel, adventure story. The Devil and the Dark Water – Stuart Turton (Harper Collins Publishers, 2020)

The devil and the dark water review