Loose Lips

De: Kemper Donovan

Narrado por: Eva Kaminsky

Knives Out meets high seas intrigue on a literary cruise to nowhere in this intelligent, wildly funny locked-room mystery for fans of Richard Osman, Anthony Horowitz, Nita Prose, and Agatha Christie!

The USA Today bestselling host of the All About Agatha podcast injects the spark and fizz of a Golden Age murder mystery into the present-day, as the ghostwriter’s skills are put to the test aboard a bestselling author’s decidedly insalubrious cruise.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. So goes the adage, but sometimes, even a first-rate ghostwriter and successful mystery author needs to make a buck. Even if that means setting foot on a cruise ship, something she vowed she’d never do. To top it off, the “Get Lit Cruise” is being organized by Payton Garrett, a very popular, bestselling author—and the ghostwriter’s long-time frenemy from back in their MFA days.

Over the years, Payton has reinvented herself. She gained a wife while ditching her journalist husband—who is also on board. And she’s acquired a rabid following who eagerly snapped up the invitations sent to a select few of her newsletter subscribers. The guests, all female, will receive personalized instruction from experts in five different writing genres, while basking in Payton’s reflected glow.

Between mentoring guests, flirting with Payton’s ex, and taking bets on how long before someone performs a reenactment of Titanic’s “I’m flying!” scene (answer: not long enough), there’s plenty to keep a ghostwriter occupied. But there’s one activity nobody expected: solving a murder.

When an attendee is found dead under suspicious circumstances and several others suffer symptoms of poisoning, there are numerous motives and suspects to choose from. But could it be that the victim wasn’t even the intended target? As the body count rises along with onboard tensions, no one is safe—except, perhaps, for a killer whose scruples have long abandoned ship. And of course, like every well-plotted mystery, this one has an extra twist …

©2025 Kemper Donovan (P)2025 Recorded Books

It was a fun read

Not as good as her first but the narration was fun and the story came together in the end.

Absolutely delightful snark!

A fun and intriguing second installment in the Ghostwriter series with exceptional narration made for a great listen!

Loved it!

My tweets are what follow. Lol!…:

Sooooo many thoughts on this one, @KemperDonovan, but I, strangely, guessed the murderer (on nothing but vibes), and loved this little world being created and developed as we make our way to the third book (will there be more than three?! 😜). 🕵🏻‍♂️❤️

Okay, let’s keep going—and, in no particular order:

I had to restart this book once and rewind several times. I won’t blame this on the author. Lol. I’m pretty sure it’s simply because I don’t want to miss things and when I started the book the first time I had a hard time keeping track of who was who and really attaching each characters attributes and personality to each. This isn’t unique to this book, though. I have to do this a lot especially in mysteries because they’re quite deliberate in how they’re telling a story so paying attention to who is who is, really, quite critical. Sometimes I won’t do this and I’ll either figure it out later/ as I go on or… I’ll get more lost. Lol.

The language is stronger than the first book was, I think (?), but, still, didn’t feel like it detracted too much from the book. Likewise, and I think this is true of any work of fiction (Craig Johnson spoke about this in an interview I listened to recently), but Kemper is commenting quite a bit on society and, to some degree, things from a particular perspective in which probably not all of his audience will agree. I don’t want to spend a lot of time commenting here other than to briefly note that human nature is as it always is (ala Miss Marple), and that it permeates and crosses over these cultural and philosophical differences and divides. So, this too, from a content perspective, is worth noting, but also, isn’t a detractor or item of concern. There’s obviously some violence here (being a murder mystery), but that isn’t heavily descriptive, and there are a couple references to sexuality that crop up, but I could probably count their occurrences on one hand, so rather than framing or permeating the book, they jot it a couple times.

I’ve known Kemper for a while from afar (from his podcast), but I did meet him in person at a book signing for his first book in this series last year, and his cultural and literary knowledge is bar none. Bro is super intelligent and I think his ingenious crafting of this book (along with its predecessor) really shine through. Like, yes, these are murder mysteries, but, as previously noted, also commentaries on society in our present era, the stream of consciousness thoughts of a fellow millennial (which, it was super cool to have a name for her in this book!), and… quite a bit more!

Honestly, I could go on for ages, but I just want to say that if you’re a fan of Agatha Christie style mysteries (and their many reproductions and etc) with a modern flair, check this out! And read/ listen to “The Busy Body,” first.

Oh, I also wanted to elaborate on my initial tweet/ thought/ paragraph above. I took absolutely no pleasure in finding out that I was right about the murderer. I wanted it to be someone else. But as the story went on I realized this person was the least likely, but also the most obvious, in that none of the other characters seemed to be it. That, and it was the most shocking for who it was. I don’t want to spoil anything though, or go on about this for too long, but I was here for the ride, and emotionally caught up in the journey from start to finish!

Lastly (for real this time, lol), I really do feel that he’s exploring and creating quite a compelling world with this series. Like, I know there’s only two so far, but I’ll read as many as he writes! Lol! We learn more about our homegirl in this book than we did in the first and, like the first, I want to go back through and relisten to this so I can catch every detail this time knowing whodunnit and everything else. Lol.

Anywho, well done, Kemper!