A friend of mine who knows I’m into pirates, especially of the queer variety (we’re both forever Flag Means Death fans) lent me this book for me to read, and it was a step-up from some other recent works I’ve read. If anything, it’s made me more excited to finally try out the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Voyage of the Damned takes place mostly on a ship called The Dragon’s Dawn, and it’s housing one person from every province in Concordia as one of their blessed; the provinces are called Dragon, Tiger, Spider, Tortoise, Elephant, Bunnerfly (not a typo), Ox, Crow, Bear, Ermine, Grasshopper and Fish. There also used to be a Crabs province, but…not anymore, to say the least. Each Blessed has a special power of their own. The ship is heading for the Sacred Goddess’s mountain for a ritual, and the only one who really doesn’t want to be on the ship is the one from Fish Province. His name is Ganymedes, but he prefers to go by Dee. He also used to be in a relationship with Ravinder, short name Ravi, the Blessed of the Crow province, before Ravi tore out his heart.
Dee feels like he’s in for twelve days of spite and boredom, until he stumbles across the Dragon Province’s Blessed crying in the bathroom, talks with her for a minute…and then shortly after she is found dead, hanged. And it soon becomes apparent that she wasn’t the only one on the murderer’s hitlist. So Dee decides to try to find out who the killer is, with a couple companions he trusts.
Before I really start this review, let me mention that several years ago, Six of Crows was a thing. Remember that big book by Leigh Bardugo? I’ve been thinking about giving it a reread one day because I remember it just wasn’t what I expected, and I gave it thumbs down. It was quite the buzz at the time. The caption was: “Six Dangerous Outcasts. One Impossible Heist.” The reviews were glowing like a field of fireflies. But most of the book took place in flashbacks from the lives of the various outcasts, which isn’t in itself bad. It just got way too cluttered and slow and distracted with itself, and I remember it spent a large amount of time sailing on a ship rather than being about a heist.
Realizing what kind of book Voyage of the Damned was going to be, I remembered how Six of Crows became a patience-tester, and I was worried this would be the same feeling. But what made me not feel the same way this time is this one is not supposed to be about a heist but a whodunit, which makes some of the info and flashbacks more welcoming and relevant. Plus, we don’t get too many flashbacks or expositions, and the primary focus seems to actually be on Dee himself, and wanting to survive whoever’s out to get the rest of the sailors, to avenge those who have fallen.
Here are the standout positives. The best part of the book by far is Grasshopper, a hyperactive and adorable six-year-old with the power to go invisible. Lovable in a Boo-from-Monsters-Inc kind of way, she reminds us of the delight of children and their innocence and how we should make sure every child has a bright future. Most of the details aren’t too hard to remember, making it a mystery that mostly welcomes us along. Dee and Wyatt’s development is great. A good mystery gets you to really care about not just the detective and suspects but the background of the crime – what happened and the events that led to it. As we learn more about this world, the more disgusted we are with how it’s treated the lower classes, and it’s quite familiar with our world today.
And here’s what doesn’t work as well. The book starts out kind of cluttered, with too much info dumping. For instance, we meet all these characters on the ship one by one, and it’s clear from that that White is trying to welcome us in gradually, but it is still too many characters at once. It feels even more that way in a chapter where Dee sets up a murder chart. It also has an ending that feels a little plot-armor heavy.
But this murderous cruise is better than a fair bit of other readings I’ve recently done. It’s certainly much more satisfying than Watch Me, Shift and Leopold Berry. Voyage of the Damned is likeable and mysterious, with fascinating suspects and creative murders.
My grade: 3 and a half stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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