Something is awry in the humid gloom below decks, and it’s soon apparent that they’re afloat not just on the ocean but on the murky waters of greed and capital. The sailors are brutal and the noble passengers untrustworthy.

Along with the governor on the galleon Saardam travel his wife, their daughter and his mistress. It’s 1634: the Dutch East India Company, run by a shadowy cabal of capitalists known as “the Gentlemen 17”, has called back Batavia’s governor general to reward his colonial success by electing him one of them. A maritime mystery with fantastical overtones, it’s set on an East Indiaman during the punishing eight-month ocean journey from Batavia to Amsterdam. Stuart Turton’s second novel is a further pick’n’mix affair involving a demon, an impossible murder and a celebrated “alchemical detective” called Samuel Pipps.

T he Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle– a curiously invigorating mix of genres described by its publishers as “ Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie” – won the 2018 Costa award for best first novel.

The devil in dark water