Most people don't realize that this book is based on a true event that happened in the 1890's aboard a lumber ship called the Herbert Fuller. Though Ms. Rinehart changed many of the details, her book brought a new attention to the case and lead, eventually, to the capture of the real criminal, releasing the mate who had been wrongly convicted of the ax murders.

The characters are a trifle cookie-cutter but the suspense of a group of people trapped aboard a boat with a particular vicious and likely insane killer cannot be beat!