The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret by Nev March. Published in 2023 by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. Pp: 314. Price: USD 29.
Nev March (Nawaz Merchant) locates her third novel, The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret, on board the HMS Etruria, a ship bearing her two endearing detectives, Captain Jim Agnihotri, also known as James O’Trey, and his wife, Lady Diana Framji — the couple who has accompanied March over her three novels. They met in Murder in Old Bombay where Agnihotri was appointed by Diana’s brother, Adi, to investigate the tragic and untimely deaths of his wife and his sister. Jim fell in love with and married Diana and the couple moved to the USA where, once again, the duo solved the crime in March’s second novel, Peril at the Exposition, which is set in Chicago.
Nev March: solving secrets
In The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret, Jim and Diana are travelling on a liner from Boston to London in the summer of 1894. The crossing is fraught with inclement weather and the novel begins with Jim being tossed from one side of the deck to the other like a shuttlecock. Unlike Diana, James is not a good sailor and is drenched in water and his own puke when he is rescued by a kind, elderly gentleman who bears Jim’s weight, as Jim has "legs of India rubber,” and deposits him on a deck chair.
The next day, at lunchtime, Jim receives a message which reads "ATTEND ME IMMEDIATAMENTE,” a plea for help from a Spaniard by the name of Don Juan Nepomuceno, the same man who had come to Jim’s assistance the day before, when he was seasick. The Don is found garrotted in the ship’s music room which is locked from all sides. The Captain, on learning that Jim is a detective, pleads with him to find the murderer before they reach Liverpool else there would be international consequences.
The problem March poses is that the murderer has to be identified in six days. The ship does not have a small number of passengers and suspects as do Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express. The liner has 1,000 passengers, a large contingent of crew, multiple decks and cabins, so she ensures that there will be a lot of suspects.
March complicates the issue by including several unnatural events. Touchy Ms Barlow, who is confined to a wheelchair on account of a riding accident, has been abandoned near the life boats. She is travelling with two maids, Alice, who has apparently committed suicide by climbing over the railing of the liner and Dora, who is traumatized by this incident. She refuses to return to the cabin she shared with Alice and seeks refuge with Jim and Diana. When Jim spends the night in her cabin, someone attempts to stifle him. He immediately tries to track down the culprit but an attendant states that he has seen no one in the passage.
March provides a string of red herrings. Nepomuceno is not really a diplomat but a cousin to the King of Spain. His aide reveals that he is the governor of Bilbao, which is the de facto capital of Basque Country. Has Nepomuceno been eliminated on account of the ongoing conflict between the Basque separatist movement and the Spanish government? The royalty in Spain has lost to the rebels and needs funds to wrest control again. Nepomuceno was on a mission to collect money for this venture and was in touch with the Rothschild family. "What else did one speak to the Rothschilds about but loans?” Is this the cause for his murder? Why are Dr Witherspoon and nurse Ms Shay, so reluctant to part with information? And why has a bottle of chloroform disappeared from the infirmary and more importantly why is it found in Dora’s room? Who is the nurse in the white dress spotted with the victim just before his murder? Nepomuceno is last seen with a woman in a black dress. Was that his wife or her maid who both dress in black? Does the argument between a lady and an officer throw any light on the incident? The lady seems to have recognized Nepomuceno and the officer replies angrily that that event was 20 years ago, "The rest was lost in the breeze. The woman replied with a shriek of protest.” And what about the diamonds which have been packed and sealed in a trunk which suddenly seem to disappear and reappear?
The novel is well written and March keeps the suspense till the very end. But it is a densely plotted novel and the reader can get quite lost in the narrative as there are too many characters and red herrings to keep track of. Probably, the most crucial and important part of the novel is a little known event of the Virginius affair in Spanish Cuban history which March has thoroughly researched but which may not be of much interest to the reader. Hence, certain parts of the novel do drag a bit. It would perhaps have been more interesting if it had been shorter.
March succeeds in further delineating the characters of both Jim and Diana and especially their personal relationship. Though the mystery of The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret is eventually solved, the end of the novel seems to hold the germ for a subsequent novel. Why has Adi come to a England suddenly without disclosing the purpose of his visit? One waits to find out. F. G.