Psychotriller Passenger 23 by the bestselling author of The Package and Therapy
Police psychologist Martin Schwartz lost his wife and son in mysterious circumstances five years ago. It happened during their holiday on the luxury ocean liner Sultan of the Seas - but none of the crew could explain to him how it happened. Since then, Martin has been mentally at rock bottom, throwing himself into the most dangerous police operations as an undercover investigator, where his life is often at stake.
In the middle of a hit, he gets a phone call from a strange old lady who introduces herself as a thriller writer. She convinces him that he absolutely must board the Sultan because she has found evidence of what must have happened to his family.
Martin swore he would never set foot on a boat. When he learns that a little girl has turned up on the boat with his son's teddy bear in her arms, who disappeared months ago, he doesn't hesitate to go on board.
Imagine a city without police. A small town where a dozen people disappear every year. No footprints. A place for the perfect crime. Welcome to the luxury cruise ship!
The story of Passenger 23 is based on a unique idea. Sebastian Fitzek has found a place from which there is no escape, but where no one can get to so easily. So the perpetrator must be on the boat and the investigator has little time to find him. Right from the start, the author sets up several plots that allow him to keep the tension level high throughout the book. But it wouldn't be Fitzek if everything hadn't been different in the end.
Report in the Tagesspiegel: At least 200 passengers and crew members have disappeared without a trace from the decks of ocean-going cruise ships and ferries since 2000. The author has used this as a starting point for his psycho-thriller and has succeeded in building a sinister and gripping crime story. The luxury cruise colossus, which sails on the open ocean, is actually a small town with its own microcosm, but without police. If passengers are lost there and not found on the boat, investigators assume they committed suicide and jumped into the sea. But when a missing passenger suddenly turns up on a boat two months later, that's a different story.