Arthur’s dead

By Thomas Jobling, published by Thomas Jobling at £4.99 Arthur and Bronagh McKitterick-Kirk are in an increasingly dysfunctional marriage. He is jealous and prone to rants when drunk, she is disaffected, short-tempered and ready to leave.

Their story begins on a cruising rally from Belfast Lough to Portpatrick aboard Gentle Furies, their dilapidated cabin cruiser with a gaff-rigged riding sail. We know Arthur dies on the trip back, as the book opens with an injured Bronagh coming to in hospital after the RNLI recovered her and a fatally-injured Arthur from Gentle Furies 10 miles off the Northern Irish coast, but is it misadventure, or murder? The author is clearly a sailor as the terminology and quirks of life on board are authentic. The plot takes a gymnastic twist at the end but I enjoyed the lively descriptions of passages.