Ship of Fools (novel)

Ship of Fools is the fourth Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novel.

Publisher's summary
"So who do I have to kill to get off this cruise?"

When Krytell Industries offered Benny a small, slightly dubious and, um, unofficial job aboard the majestic space cruise-liner, the Titanian Queen, she jumped at the chance. After all, with an unlimited expense account, an entire new wardrobe and more strings of pearls and other jewels than you could shake an Art Deco stick at, what more could a poor girl want?

That was then.

Now, the luckless if remarkably deserving passengers of the Titanian Queen are dropping like flies. Are the deaths the work of the mysterious criminal known as the Cat's Paw? Or is the super-rich businessman Krytell himself somehow involved? And will the great detective, Emil Dupont, finally stop getting things completely and utterly wrong and solve it all in time for tea and muffins?

Whatever's happening, Benny had better discover the truth for herself, and discover it soon. Before she suddenly finds herself another highly deplorable crime statistic.

Plot
to be added

Chapter Titles
 Part One: Embarkation The Morning After the Night Before the Morning After (Recurring) A Relocation and a Preposition A Setting is Essay’d, A Villain Comprehended A Positive Plethora of Investigators ‘Welcome to the Cruise of the Millennium ...’ ‘In the Heart of Space the Night Never Ends ...’ Something Nasty in the Flies A Small Break in the Continuity</li> Part Two: Excursions ‘Your First Stop on a Grand Tour of Intergalactic Wonder ...'</li> A Dinner Appointment with Destiny</li> Sitting Down to Dine</li> The Distinct Possibility of Foul Play</li> The Purée of the Plot Noticeably Thickens</li> The Plot Becomes More Complicated than was Previously Imagined</li> Part Three: A Port of Call Benny Under the Spyglass</li> The Feast of Truth and Lies</li> The Removal and Disposal of Certain Masques</li> Part Four: Arrival Methods of Investigation</li> Can we Talk?</li> The Characters Inhabiting the Mind</li> The Inherent Shape of Things, Perceived</li> The Penultimate Programme</li> Surprising Arrivals</li> </ol>
 * Prologue: The Imperfect Crime, and How to Commit It
 * Interlude: The Unpleasant End of Doctor Po
 * Interlude: The Devilish Disguises of Doctor Po
 * Interlude: The Hands that Bind the Dead
 * Final Interlude: The Lair of the Flatwyrm
 * Appendix I: A Recipe
 * Appendix II: Emil Dupont Provides a Small Surprise

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Irving Braxiatel
 * Marcus Krytell
 * Isabel Blaine (aka Cat's Paw)
 * ARVID
 * Emil Dupont
 * Captain Iolanthe Crane

Books

 * Bernice has been sent a review copy of Franz Kryptosa's Lost Gods and the Fall of Empire.

Computers

 * Several artificial life forms including ARVID and the Cat's Paw are from the Catan Nebula.

Foods and beverages

 * Irving Braxiatel drinks Albareran claret from the 24th century.

History

 * Mention is made that humans first made contact with aliens in the 22nd century.

Objects

 * Olabrian joy-luck crystals are complex, interlocking, lattice-globes of quasi-living crystal hewn from the heart of Olabria's satellites.

Planets

 * Plumptious Minor is a (formerly) isolated Earth colony whose society is based largely on innuendo.

Spacecraft

 * The Titanian Queen was undertaking its maiden voyage, a pleasure cruise through the Proximan Chain. It stopped off at Shokesh during the trip.

Continuity

 * The Cat's Paw was previously mentioned in PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!, Dragons' Wrath and Beyond the Sun.
 * The Czhans previously appeared in PROSE: Death and Diplomacy.
 * There is a vague reference to PROSE: Return of the Living Dad in that Benny didn't know her father until late in her life.
 * Franz Kryptosa was first mentioned in PROSE: Dragons' Wrath and appears in Down.