A new TV show for Channel 5 and Paramount+ is set on a cruise ship and shot in Malta. In HMS Murder, Cabaret singer, Jack Grayling, who was previously a detective, discovers sinister elements onboard a cruise ship when a passenger is found murdered.
In Cruise Ship Crime Investigators book series guest speaker on a cruise ship, Kieron Philips is thrust back into his investigator past. He was previously in the British special forces.
In HMS Murder the ambitious First Officer Kate Woods has her desire to be captain thrown into jeopardy by this turn of events.
In the Cruise Ship Crime Investigators series started in 2015, book 2 - Cruise Ship Serial Killer, the ambitious head of security Officer Ruby Jenkins discovers a murder on the long Pacific Ocean crossing and sees this as an opportunity for a career bump. Then there is another murder, then another.
In HMS Murder a wave of murder mysteries follows, and each is set against the backdrop of a different stunning coastal destination. Scenes were shot in 20 different locations in Malta and used it to represent ports in other countries such as Casablanca. Malta is known as the Hollywood of the Mediterranean with film studios and the Popeye Village. See our Malta pages
In CSCI, all the books are based on ships and in cruise ports. Cruise Ship Heist starts in Port Limon, Costa Rica then takes Kieron Philips, the guest speaker through the Panama Canal. On discovering millions of drug money onboard he is thrust back into his detective role to figure out how he is being used. The ship then goes to Cartagena in South America, across to Bequia and the story ends drastically in Madeira. The series is serialised on YouTube and you can start listening here.
https://youtu.be/-90fO5qyaCg
The UK based indie TV company Clapperboard has made this in association with Endeavour Content. It is being billed as “Murder She Wrote meets Below Deck.”
The team is Paul Testar, Commissioning Executive, Drama for Channel 5 and Paramount+. Executive producers for Clapperboard are Mike Benson and lead writer Paul Matthew Thompson. Sandra MacIver is producing, and Gordon Anderson is directing.
Channel 5 has shown a number of cruise shows, not least the popular Cruising with Jane McDonald. Strange they then use the term HMS when cruise ships are all MS and the remaining single liner at see the RMS Queen Mary II is the only RMS. They have underestimated the proud knowledge of ship lovers and cruisers with the Carry On term.
Paul Testar said: “I’m really happy to work once more with the talented team at Clapperboard Studios to bring HMS Murder to screens. With a variety of gloriously sunny locations added to the classic murder mystery genre, and with a splash of music on top, Channel 5 viewers are in for a treat.”
Clapperboard Managing Director Mike Benson added: “We’ve seen a lot of murder mystery shows in recent years – but not many featuring murder, mystery and a cruise ship cabaret singer solving crimes. HMS Murder is probably our most ambitious series to date, filmed across 8 different countries as well as a 6000 cabin luxury cruise liner sailing the med.”
Prentis Fraser, EVP of Television Distribution at Endeavor Content said: “As soon as we heard this pitch we were completely on board – this series is a genius combination of elements, a Murder She Wrote meets Below Deck with the p
erfect mix of glamour, charm and intrigue taking place in an abundance of gorgeous, glossy locations. With the accessibility of a procedural and a playlist of iconic tracks, HMS Murder is ideally designed to be a fan favourite returnable series.”
See the CSCI Cruise Ship Crime Investigators page here on Amazon.
Cruise Crime series Amazon page
and here on this website. We also list the other cruise authors.
Commander Kieron Philips first civilian job is to commentate on the Panama Canal transit and be in uniform at a commemoration service on a cruise ship his sponsored refugee has grown to become a dancer on. Now a civilian, Kieron's quasi-adopted daughter wants him to find romance but his highly tuned instincts sense serious trouble. Money appears and people go missing as the ship sails between South American ports. With no protective kit, no backup and not armed he avoids ruthless gang appointed assassins on the ship, looking for money he should not have to guard. Worse still, after a career serving his country with no family to make him vulnerable, he has skin in the game; Auli'i, who now calls him dad. Nothing is worth putting her at risk but as the deathly game escalates, he figures his presence is more than a coincidence. But how? She arranged his visit.
Hunter and Witowski have just started their Miami based cruise crime investigation unit when the three guests are killed on a cruise ship that is out of helicopter assistance range. The Panama to Tahiti crossing is all ocean. Eleven lonely, isolated days of romance at sea that can bleed no more. They board a long-range coast guard plane for a night jump into the Pacific as near to the ship as is possible. Another body is found before they change clothes, and another murder happens each night. The ship's security officer Ruby Jenkins soon develops ideas a taste to join what she sees as a more exciting future, but it is Prisha from data wrangling in the ship’s office who is seconded to help CSCI. If they can stay alive long enough to find the killer. 
When asked to investigate a simple problem at sea, Hunter avoids too much information. He has a newborn baby at home and knows cruise operators never call CSCI for simple. Still recovering from an almost fatal head injury, his partner Kieron must leave the beach-front Caribbean villa he bought with Georgie. They had a strange fling, thrown together by discovered millions they had to spend then and there, as Keiron solved the heist that launched CSCI. Her partner, ex KGB agent Bedrîska is living there with Georgie but leaves with Kieron to be his undercover wife as he goes from one 
Art is being systematically stolen from the collection on the most luxurious cruise ship at sea. The collective value is way beyond the sum people kill for. CSCI is approached to work invisibly because unlike INTERPOL or any other international crime unit, art police, valuers, insurance investigators, or experts, they are unknown to the thieves. They must remain unseen or the crime will stop, the thieves will vanish and the art lost for good. The ace CSCI play is their intern Macey who can be on the ship as the star guest. It is an opportunity that can make this young unknown artist a star. It is exploitation that puts her at risk, but it is a chance her talent deserves; a chance a girl from the Miami projects never gets to have. All she has to do is survive and make it work.
Romance can be harsh, it can be violent, it can be a crime. Violet has never had the chance of romance, nor has she experienced life and time is running out. As the world comes out of a major virus lockdown the media's resurgence for life sells her the need to venture out before it is too late. Her care-at-home medical team disagree but before she can be interned again for her own safety, she takes a cruise and vanishes without a trace. Now she is not only a danger to herself, but to others.
A storeroom gem safe on the cruise ship MS Aerwyna is open and a whistleblower reports it on a tip line. It is the third out-off-service ship, anchored in international waters off the Bahamas, to be refitted. If the heist involves each of the anchored three ships, it is well-organised crime with a purse large enough to kill for.