Wish I had read this book sooner, was a great thrilling read with good established characters and plot. Will recommend to family and friends.

Steven M. Moore http://stevenmmoore.com is the author of more than two dozen novels. Death on the Danube was published in 2020 and this is the third novel in his Esther Brookstone Art Detective series. It is the 50th book I completed reading in 2023.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence and mature situations, I categorize this novel as R. The primary character is Esther Brookstone. She was an MI-6 agent in East Berlin, then Brookstone joined Scotland Yard. There she rose to Inspector in the Art and Antiquities Branch. Now in her mid-sixties, she is on a honeymoon cruise with her new husband, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden.

The cruise is disrupted by the discovery of a murdered passenger. The murdered man is a mystery to the passengers and crew. More questions arise when a couple on the cruise dies in an odd accident. Have Brookstone and her husband taken an unlucky cruise, or is there something more suspicious going on? Is it somehow tied to her past with MI-6?

I enjoyed the 8+ hours I spent reading this 374-page mystery. I partially chose this novel because I have been on and enjoyed a Danube cruise. Unfortunately, the plot wanders around, and the story feels choppy. Nor am I impressed with the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 3 out of 5.

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A decent holiday read which will keep you entertained. The writing style was not really to my taste as it was a little simple, but it is an interesting story with many good points.

A book with really too many flaws.
1) It is part of a series and you can feel it. In practice the poor reader who comes across it by chance has a lot of difficulty in understanding the psychology of the main characters. Usually, under these conditions, I abandon the book. This time I went ahead, but because of the defect...
2) Set a few years in the future, but probably written when the COVID pandemic had not yet broken out, the liquid as it happened and resolved without consequences, a gimmick that I find very stupid.
3) There are a couple of subplots, like the one of the painting to be evaluated and its theft, that should fill the plot, but they seem to be put there to have something to stick to in the next episodes of the series.
Since I had arrived at a good point, I arrived at the end, which disappointed me at least as much as the rest.
The spot for the countries of Lower Bavaria and Austria that the river cruise touches isn't particularly interesting either, since it looks like a copy and paste from Wikipedia.

this was a great mystery, the characters were great and really enjoyed going through this story. I look forward to more from the author.

God this was dull. I read only the first 20% and gave up. The characters were unbelievable, and the dialogue tedious.