![]() Pipps and Hayes are as opposite a pair of opposites as you could desire. Murder, conspiracy and gothic mayhem aside, these are only some of the mysteries we expect our crimefighting duo to solve as the Saardam flounders its way towards Holland. What’s the secret of “The Folly”, the inexplicable quasi-scientific object the governor has brought aboard with him? Why has Samuel Pipps, acknowledged to be the most respected criminal investigator of his day, been dragged aboard in chains? How can he solve a locked-room murder that seems so impossible as to be supernatural, when he’s shut in a cell the size of a coffin himself? Is the demon “Old Tom” real, or only a Scooby Doo-style player in one of the many onboard commercial and political factions? From the governor to Pipps’s assistant Arent Hayes, to the demon itself, everyone seems related, entangled in backstory. ![]() ![]() 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. ![]()
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