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A Quiet River Cruise
Paperback
Series: The Allistair Douglas Madness, Book 1
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ISBN13: 9798259461284
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 3 2026
Pages: 94
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.24 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 3 2026
Pages: 94
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.24 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Chaos, it turns out, is a rather effective escape from the cares of today.
In Allistair Douglas's delightfully unhinged debut, A Quiet River Cruise, three well-meaning but catastrophically incompetent boatmen set off for a peaceful day on the river-only to discover they are transporting more than sandwiches, sunburn, and mild resentment. When Harris, the least reliable of the trio, reveals he may have tied a small parcel beneath the boat, events unravel with the comic inevitability of a deckchair collapsing under a large uncle.
In Allistair Douglas's delightfully unhinged debut, A Quiet River Cruise, three well-meaning but catastrophically incompetent boatmen set off for a peaceful day on the river-only to discover they are transporting more than sandwiches, sunburn, and mild resentment. When Harris, the least reliable of the trio, reveals he may have tied a small parcel beneath the boat, events unravel with the comic inevitability of a deckchair collapsing under a large uncle.
What follows is a gloriously tangled chain of misunderstandings: a missing husband, a missing parrot, a corpse that refuses to stay put, two wives at war, a vicar traumatised into temporary sainthood, and a police inspector who would very much like to resign but cannot find the paperwork. As the river calmly returns every secret the characters try to hide, the story swells into a buoyant, absurd mystery that nods affectionately to Three Men in a Boat while paddling headlong into its own brand of chaos.
Douglas writes with a lightness that belies the escalating madness, offering readers a comic refuge from modern anxieties. In a world that often feels too serious by half, this first novel invites you to drift downstream into a place where confusion is comforting, disaster is funny, and even a parrot can deliver damning testimony with impeccable timing.
A Quiet River Cruise is a reminder that sometimes the best way to cope with life is to laugh at the bits that make no sense-and keep rowing anyway.
Douglas writes with a lightness that belies the escalating madness, offering readers a comic refuge from modern anxieties. In a world that often feels too serious by half, this first novel invites you to drift downstream into a place where confusion is comforting, disaster is funny, and even a parrot can deliver damning testimony with impeccable timing.
A Quiet River Cruise is a reminder that sometimes the best way to cope with life is to laugh at the bits that make no sense-and keep rowing anyway.
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