Charteris is one of the few passengers on board to have been assigned a roommate, Eric Knoecher, whom he soon learns is and undercover Gestapo agent. Charteris casually mentions to a few passengers to be careful speaking in front of Knoecher, and the next morning, Charteris finds a piece of Knoecher’s tie stuck in a window, leading the author to believe Knoecher has either been pushed off of the zeppelin or jumped to his death. Charteris takes his suspicions to the captain of the Hindenburg who asks Charteris to ask a few discreet questions of some passengers who may have been on Knoecher’s list for observation.

As Charteris asks questions of the passengers, he grows less and less suspicious of his fellow passengers on the list, and more and more suspicious of the crew of the Hindenburg and of a beautiful young woman, Hilda, with whom Charteris has spent a good deal of time during the voyage.

The Hindenburg Murders is a very clever pairing of fact and fiction, carefully researched conjecture and the author’s own fanciful additions. Leslie Charteris was indeed not on this fated voyage, but makes a wonderful addition to the passenger manifest. Collins has cleverly included references to Charteris’s Saint series sprinkled through out the book, a point mentioned in an appendix to the novel. Collins includes the details that he used that were accurate and describes where liberties were taken.

The action of the book takes place over four days and is confined to the tight quarters of the gondola, leaving a limited number of suspects. While Knoecher’s murderer is easily picked out, Collins provides a couple of interesting twists at the end of the book. A fun combination of fact and fiction skillfully combined to create a fast-paced novel, to be enjoyed by fans of historical fiction and mysteries alike.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry