It is one of the veritably seismic truths, in this often contradictory and paradoxical world, that life is (if you didn’t know it already) unfair. Babies and small children die of cancer and other terrible diseases. And sometimes nasty, horrible people live until they are over 100 years old. 

This nefarious cruelty does not end with life spans. The world is also sizably unjust in terms of wealth distribution among it’s inhabitants. In Australia, where I live, there are some 178 billionaires. Further, the 20 richest people in Australia have more wealth than the bottom 3 million households combined. 

In a country, Australia, where the most expensive property (a penthouse at Barangoo on Sydney Harbour) sold for an eye-watering $141.55 million in cash recently, at the other end of the top-heavy socio-economic spectrum, families and others are living in tents and cars (this includes the elderly and babies). It is enough to make you cry and is simply unacceptable that many are living in such unsafe conditions. We can put man on the moon and discover and implement major medical breakthroughs, such as life-saving vaccinations, but those in power cannot (or are unwilling) to solve the problem of homelessness once and for all (they have already achieved this noble goal in Norway, so it is not an impossible societal failing to remedy).

Large wealth disparity has been going on since Feudal times (in the Middle Ages) in Europe and England. Then, extremely wealthy landowners from the noble classes (who numbered a small minority) held all the wealth and power, whilst the rest of the population consisting of peasants, all lived destitute or near destitution. 

Fast-forward to the modern day, and we catch a superb insight into the inner and outer lives’ of billionaire dynasty patriarch, Irving Fairchild (head of Fairchild and Sons), and his flawed family (all hailing from England), in stellar English author (she now lives in Australia), Ali Lowe’s, latest spectacular crime novel/psychological thriller, The Second Wife. 

In the book, the airily privileged Fairchilds include the ever eager-to- please son of Irving, Ridley, and his strongly supportive wife, Cordelia (Celia). There is also Irving’s nasty, opinionated and condescending to others, daughter Marina, and her loyal and worshipful (of Marina) husband, Douglas Beckett. 

Irving is paying for him and the other five family members (his younger, glamourous and second wife, Gen, is also on the cruise) plus his own personal lawyer and friend from boarding school days, Murray Hinton-Browne, to go on an all-expenses-paid luxury (and I mean luxury!) ill-fated cruise on the gigantic and no-expenses-spared (in the building, outfit of and luxury furnishings, bedding etc) ship, the Titan Pacifica, embarking on a South Pacific Cruise from Sydney, Australia, for nine extremely eventful (an understatement!) days. 

Celia reflects to herself at the start of the cruise that “Ridley may have grown up in this world, but, as the daughter of a teacher and a bank manager, she didn’t, and it’s certainly not the way he lives now. She and Ridley would never be able to afford any of this if they were paying – the combined wage from his PR role and Celia’s three-days-from- home admin job wouldn’t even touch the sides”.

Celia and Ridley’s little boys, Dylan and Jonah, have stayed at home. Fortuitously as it turns out. 

Marina and Doug, unlike Marina’s brother and sister-in-law, live in luxury in their day-to-day lives, “because Doug is rolling in cash thanks to his role as COO (Chief Operating Officer) at one of the big four accountancy firms. They’ve invested a lot of it in property, including a massive townhouse in Mayfair, even though they don’t have a family to fill it – and probably never will, since Marina dislikes children”.

It is Doug’s aim to be handed a job at Fairchild and Sons when Irving eventually hands the reins over to one of the family. However, Ridley has virtually been promised by Irving that he will be taking over. Irving is seventy now (he celebrates his birthday on the cruise) and it seems an announcement will be imminent.

As stated earlier, this is an ill-fated cruise for the Fairchilds. The reason being that while six of them embark on the opulent ship (and whose sleeping quarters and most activities take place on Deck Nine, the deck for the monetarily high-flyers), only four of them make it back alive to Sydney.

There is the young staff member, Molly, who is the “cruise concierge” and hails from England originally, and is in her mid-thirties. She is “essentially a valet for the Deck Nine clientele”. She has worked on other cruise boats, but simply loves working on the Titan Pacifica. “And as soon as she stepped on board the Pacifica, she felt she was born to it, the luxury – it was almost as if it could have been hers in another life: the free-flowing champagne, the fancy meals, the French flax linen bedsheets and Diptyque reed diffusers”.

Molly shares a dark, squashy cabin down on a bottom floor of the Pacifica with her friend, Storm. Storm hails from Ireland and is a dancer on board the ship, entertaining the passengers night after night. Molly and Storm are also friends with Iona, the bartender on board, and Lemarr, a steward.

The staff know more about what is going on with the passengers than the passengers realise. Do any of the staff have a link to the Fairchilds? Do the Fairchilds know about it?

Captain Adriano Vela runs a tight ship and takes no nonsense from anyone. When one of the six Fairchild family members are found murdered in their room and another goes overboard (were they pushed or did they jump?), the cruise to paradise quickly morphs into the cruise from Hell.

There has been a lot of caustic nastiness from the Fairchilds to one another on board the Pacifica. Have one or more of them cracked? Are all the crew members who they seem to be? What is the lawyer, Murray’s, agenda?

Who can be trusted? Can anyone be truly trusted?

It seems many of the characters in the novel have secrets. Just what are they?

Will the person who went overboard be found in the eerily frothy wake of the ship or forever lost to the lazily tropical climes of the South Pacific?

Ali has written a book that dances and sings with the beauty of the dazzling Pacific Ocean and it’s environs, and the Titan Pacifica’s indulgent luxury, whilst also dragging us down, metaphorically, to the ocean depths as we become exposed to the darkness of the human heart and it’s depravities.

Bravo Ali! I have read all your books and this one (as all of the others are) is exemplary. I found myself totally absorbed in a world of spoilt, rich people, where the stakes are high and appearances are deceiving. Where the ship’s staff may know too much. Where there are many suspects.

Ali has an amazing insight into the human psyche and nature and this book overflows with intelligence and wisdom. Descriptions of Noumea and Lifou, New Caledonia and Port Vila, Vanuatu are a treat. 

I loved The Second Wife. I will be lining up to read whatever Ali writes next.