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The Last Passenger

Book 5 in The Silas Vance Mysteries

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by P M Charles

A vanished passenger. A watched saloon. A coffin no one dares to open. On a rain-darkened evening, former naval surgeon Silas Vance boards the Thames steamer Empress of Kent to meet Gideon Shaw, a frightened former shipping clerk who claims he can identify the man behind the divided crown. Before Shaw can surrender his evidence, he enters a private saloon—and disappears. The doors were watched. The deck rails remained visible. No boat approached the steamer, and a police inspector guarded the only passenger gangway. Yet somewhere between Woolwich and Greenwich, Shaw vanished without leaving a trace. Then a second passenger dies from an apparent seizure. As Silas searches the steamer, Clara Mercer uncovers troubling discrepancies in its records. Forty-six passengers are listed, but forty-seven meals were served. Shaw’s ticket has been punched twice. A widow’s sealed coffin sits unusually low upon its frame, surrounded by the scents of camphor, carbolic acid and something medicinal. The clues point towards a conspiracy hidden behind shipping companies, charitable hospitals and respectable burial societies—a network capable of turning living people into cargo and murder into an entry in a ledger. To save Shaw and expose the divided crown, Silas must solve an impossible disappearance before the steamer’s final cargo is carried beyond his reach. The Last Passenger is Book Five in the Silas Vance Mysteries, an atmospheric Victorian historical mystery combining maritime crime, medical detection and a traditional fair-play puzzle. Perfect for readers who enjoy intelligent investigations, dark institutional secrets and mysteries steeped in fog, gaslight and the dangerous waters of the Thames.

Publication date: August 15, 2026